Date: 1781

"May God write it upon all your hearts!"

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: 1782

"The wise philosopher tells us, that the soul of man is rasa tabula, like a white sheet of paper, out of which it must be more than common art to erase the first impressions"

— Grose, John (bap. 1758, d. 1821)

Date: 1783

Children's "minds, like a sheet of white paper, are susceptible to every impression"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1784, 1804

"But his spiritual kingdom is not of this world; the throne of grace is in heaven; his laws are from heaven, and written in the minds of all his subjects."

— Huntington, William (1745-1813)

Date: 1788-89

"According to Mr. Locke, the soul is a mere rasa tabula, an empty recipient, a mechanical blank."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"According to Plato, she [the soul] is an ever-written tablet, a plenitude of forms, a vital and intellectual energy."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788

"But in general, I know of no method of getting money, not even that of robbing for it upon the highway, which has so direct a tendency to efface the moral sense, to rob the heart of every gentle and humane disposition, and to harden it, like steel, against all impressions of sensibility."

— Newton, John (1725-1807)

Date: February 1791

"Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all."

— Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)

Date: 1794

"Therefore I take the mind or soul of men to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all impressions, as a rasa tabula, or white paper, &c."

— Morell, Thomas (1703-1784)

Date: 1795

"The infant mind has been compared to a tabula rasa, or sheet of clean paper: but there is this essential difference, as hath been well observed, between the opposite objects of comparison they are not both equally Indifferent to the inscription which they are to bear."

— Napleton, John (1738/9-1817)