Date: 1740

"Some have said that the human Mind contained within it the Seeds of all Sciences; the Mind is indeed a Soil in which any of these Seeds may be sown, but it must be cultivated; and without an Husbandman it will continue a mere Tabula rasa, except what the Instincts write on it, without a p...

— Philalethes [pseud.]

Date: 1741

"Vertue's noble mark ... extending by degrees, / Shall grow like Letters carv'd on Trees / That widen with the Bark."

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1754

"The human soul is so far from being furnished with forms and ideas to perceive all things by, or from being impregnated, I would rather say than printed over, with the seeds of universal knowledge, that we have no ideas till we receive passively the ideas of sensible qualities from without."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1765

"That fruit thy covenant may yield, / Which is upon my forehead seal'd, / And on my heart ingraft."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)