Date: 1691

"So innocent is the Soul of Kainophilus, so like fair white Paper, wherein you may presently see the least blot or speck of dirt that happens to fall upon it."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Who has so many English Dictionaries in his Study, and another in his Head bigger than all together (and yet there's still room to spare both for Brains and Projects) Does not he?--nay--now you ruffle his smooth Soul, alter his fair Body, and discompose him all over."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1747

"Now the Purpose for which [Lestrange] principally intended his Book, as in his Preface he spends a great many Words to inform us, was for the Use and Instruction of Children; who being, as it were, a mere rasa tabula, or blank Paper, are ready indifferently for any Opinion, good or bad, taking a...

— Croxall, Samuel (1688/9-1752); Aesop

Date: 1747

"What sort of Children therefore are the Blank Paper, upon which such Morality as this ought to be written?"

— Croxall, Samuel (1688/9-1752); Aesop

Date: 1747

"Let the Children of Italy, France, Spain, and the rest of the Popish Countries, furnish him with Blank Paper for Principles, of which free-born Britons are not capable."

— Croxall, Samuel (1688/9-1752); Aesop

Date: 1759

"The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760-7

"For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"When the situation is, what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, continued she--you had reason--the heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent notices of it to the brain to reverse th...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)