Date: 1795

"A soft sponginess of character that will easily acquire any hue, or any stain; a tabula rasa of intellect; a spirit invulnerable to insult; that (for example) after vain endeavors to disunite and discourage the Catholics of Ireland, could condescend to [end page 2] truck and chaffer, for the off...

— Drennan, William (1754-1820)

Date: 1795

"The infant mind has been compared to a tabula rasa, or sheet of clean paper: but there is this essential difference, as hath been well observed, between the opposite objects of comparison they are not both equally Indifferent to the inscription which they are to bear."

— Napleton, John (1738/9-1817)

Date: 1796

"Oh! it was not a diamond which engraved that image on my heart"

— Anonymous; Kotzebue (1761-1819)

Date: 1796

"Ay: ay: this is none of your modern paper skull'd authors--old Geoffery's head is sound"

— Reynolds, Frederick (1764-1841)

Date: 1796

"He guarded my mind from imbibing any religious principles at all, under the notion of preserving it to maturity, like a rasa tabula, free from all prejudices."

— Anonymous

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"The action of the pen will doubtless imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much question whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the waste of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnson, (Idler, No. 74.) 'that what is twice read, is commonly better remember...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1796

"Edgar, touched by a comparison to the person he most honoured, gratefully looked his acknowledgment; and all displeasure at her flight, even from Thomson's scene of conjugal felicity, was erased from his mind."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1796

"I then--alas, too late! dived deeper, with, then, useless investigation,--and discovered an early passion, never erased from her mind;--discovered--that I had never made her happy! that she was merely enduring, suffering me--while my whole confiding soul was undividedly hers!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1796

"I have read the emotions of your bosom; you are yet ill skilled in concealing them, and they could not escape my attentive eye."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"The mind of a young woman lady should be clear and unsullied, like a sheet of white paper, or her own fairer face"

— Hays, Mary (1760-1843)