Date: 1708

"Besides, he has given an account of those several steps and degrees by which a Man is brought to this perfection; till his Soul is like a polish'd Looking-glass, in which he beholds the Truth: and then he swims in pleasure, and rejoyces exceedingly in his Mind, because of the impressions of Trut...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

Date: 1731

"Now Sense, that is a Living Eye or Mirror, as soon as ever it is Converted toward this Object, will here Passively perceive an Appearance of an Individual Thing, as existing without it, White and Triangular, without any Distinction Concretely and Confusedly together; and it will perceive no more...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1751

"His mind does not receive the impression of the moral world, in the same manner, as wax receives the impression of a seal. It does not reflect the image of it, in the same manner, as a mirror reflects its images: it has a peculiar cast and turn given to its conceptions, admirably ordered to exal...

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"Oh! that I could express, that I could describe, these great conceptions, with the same warmth, with the same energy, that they are impressed on my soul!" [Literal translation: "Oh could you only express, could you the breathe forth upon this paper all that lives so warm and full, that it might ...

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)

Date: 1788

There are those "whom the traffic of their race / Has robb'd of every human grace; / Whose harden'd souls no more retain / Impressions Nature stamp'd in vain; / All that distinguishes their kind, / For ever blotted from their mind; / As streams, that once the landscape gave / Reflected o...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)