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Date: Dated August 6, 1707; 1711

"The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

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Date: Friday, August 1711

"This was a childish Amusement when I was carried away with outward Appearance, but you make a deeper Impression, and affect the secret Springs of the Mind; you charm the Fancy, sooth the Passions, and insensibly lead the Reader to that Sweetness of Temper that you so well describe; you rouse Gen...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

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Date: Thursday, August 9, 1711

"Where Sovereigns have it [love of glory] by Impressions received from Education only, it creates an Ambitious rather than a Noble Mind; where it is the natural Bent of the Prince's Inclination, it prompts him to the Pursuit of Things truly Glorious."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

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Date: 1713, 1734

"And that outward objects by the different impressions they make on the organs of sense, communicate certain vibrative motions to the nerves; and these being filled with spirits, propagate them to the brain or seat of the soul, which according to the various impressions or traces thereby made in ...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

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Date: 1724

"If I have here touch'd a young Lady's Vanity and Levity, it was to show her how beautiful she is without those Blots, which certainly stain the Mind, and stamp Deformity where the greatest Beauties would shine, were they banish'd."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

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Date: 1725

"I wou'd have all those soft-hearted Ladies that are impress'd like Wax, read Quevedo's 'Vision of Loving-Fools.'"

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

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Date: 1725

"My Delia's Words still bear the Stamp of Wit, / Impress'd too plainly to be counterfeit: / Which, with the Weight of massy Reason join'd, / Declare the Strength and Quickness of her Mind; / Her Thoughts are noble, and her Sense refin'd."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

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Date: September 10, 1726

"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occ...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

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Date: 1760-7

"When Dolly has indited her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right-side;--take that opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception, can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by that one thing whi...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.