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)

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: 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)

Date: Published serially, 1765-1770

"Saint Paul, bears Testimony, also, to the Impression of this Law of Rights on the Consciences and Hearts of all Men" in Romans, chapter 2: "Not the Hearers of the Law are just before God, but the Doers of the Law shall be justified. For, when the Gentiles, which have not the Law, do by Nature th...

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1765, 1770

"When of old / Arcadia's peaceful shepherds uncontroul'd / Their ranging flocks thro' boundless pastures drove, / Or tun'd their pipes beneath the myrtle grove, / Their laws on brazen tablets unimprest / Were deeply grav'd on each ingenuous breast, / No proud Vicegerent of Astrea reign'd, / Astre...

— Wodhull, Michael (1740-1816)

Date: 1771

"As the Wax would not be adequate to its business of Signature, had it not a Power to retain, as well as to receive; the same holds of the SOUL, with respect to Sense and Imagination."

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1773, 1894-1895

One may learn "her Lesson from within" and "There […] read the Characters imprest / Upon the Mind of ev'ry human Breast,-- / The native Laws prescrib'd to every Soul, / And Love, the One Fulfiller of the Whole."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

Date: 1773

"The figure of his father venerable in virtue, of his sister lovely in innocence, were imprinted on his mind; and the variety of public places of entertainment, to which sir Thomas conducted him, could not immediately efface the impression."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1783

"A maxim, or moral saying, properly enough receives this form; both because it is supposed to be the fruit of meditation, and because it is designed to be engraven on the memory, which recalls it more easily by the help of such contrasted expressions."

— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)

Date: 1783

"When the brain itself is disordered, by disease, by drunkenness, or by other accidents, these philosophers are of opinion, that the impressions are disfigured, or instantly erased, or not at all received; in which case, there is either no remembrance, or a confused one."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)