Date: 1715
"Why, Child, to have the Spirit of God which wrote that Word, print it in your Mind, and give you Understanding both to read and obey it."
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1733, 1742
"I take the Mind or Soul of Man not to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all Impressions, as a Rasa Tabula, or white Paper."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"In this, therefore, I am forced to differ from that great Philosopher and Master of Reason, Mr. Locke, who denies and argues against all innate Ideas in general, and of every Kind: He supposes the Soul originally to be as a rasa Tabula, or Blank without any Impression, or distingui...
preview | full record— Morgan, Thomas (d. 1743)
Date: 1741
"Then the Brain being well furnished with various Traces, Signatures and Images, will have a rich Treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the Soul, when it directs its Thoughts towards any particular Subject."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"What an unknown and unspeakable Happiness would it be to a Man of Judgment, and who is engaged in the Pursuit of Knowledge, if he had but a Power of stamping all his own best Sentiments upon his Memory in some indelible Characters; and if he could but imprint every valuable Paragraph and Sentime...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"So for Instance, in Children; they perceive and forget a hundred Things in an Hour; the Brain is so soft that it receives immediately all Impressions like Water or liquid Mud, and retains scarce any of them: All the Traces, Forms or Images which are drawn there, are immediately effaced or closed...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"Maronides had got the first hundred Lines of Virgil's 'Æneis' printed upon his Memory so perfectly, that he knew not only the Order and Number of every Verse from one to a hundred in Perfection, but the Order and Number of every Word in each Verse also."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"Let every thing we desire to remember be fairly and distinctly written and divided into Periods, with large Characters in the Beginning; for by this Means we shall the more readily imprint the Matter and Words on our Minds, and recollect them with a Glance, the more remarkable the Writi...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)