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Date: 360-355 B.C.

"When a man has in his mind a good thick slab of wax, smooth and kneaded to the right consistency, and the impressions that come through the senses are stamped on these tables of the 'heart'--Homer's word hints at the mind's likeness to wax--then the imprints are clear and deep enough to last a l...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

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Date: 1606

An "evill and hinderance to wisdome ... is the confusion and captivitie of his passions, and turbulent affections, whereof he must disfurnish and free himselfe, to the end he may be emptie and neate, like a white paper, and be made a subject more fit to receive tincture and impressions of wisdome...

— Charron, Pierre (1541-1603); Lennard, Sampson (d. 1633)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"But there is this farther Argument in it against their being innate: That these Characters, if they were native and original Impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those Persons, in whom yet we find no Footsteps of them."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Characters drawn on Dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether as useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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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: Jan 7 1712/13

"The Heart must be Tabula Rasa, white Paper to his Pen, soft Wax to his Seal: Let him write upon me what he pleaseth, and make what Impressions he pleaseth upon me."

— Henry, Matthew (1662-1714)

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Date: 1757

"Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteddy a contexture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression; how much more ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: September 1, 1759.

" Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and which new images are striving to obliterate."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

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