Date: April 26 1870

"Why, as a volume seldom read / Being opened halfway shuts again, / So might the pages of her brain / Be parted at such words, and thence / Close back upon the dusty sense."

— Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)

Date: 1871

"[T]he mynd of man first of hyt selfe ys a clene and pure tabul where ys no thyng payntyd or carvyd, but of hyt selfe apt & indyfferent to receyve al maner of pycturys, and image."

— Starkey, Thomas (c. 1495-1538)

Date: April, 1871

"Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: Late Autumn, 1882

"A letter always seemed to me like Immortality, for is it not the mind alone, without corporeal friend?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: w. before 1641, 1883

"[H]is face was the frontispice of his mind, hee knew not how to dissemble a thought."

— Smyth, John (1567-1640)

Date: 1890

"We noticed smallest things, / Things overlooked before, / By this great light upon our  minds / Italicized, as 't were."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1900

"Then from this hour deep on my heart engraved / Be all my duty needful."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1900

"My mind felt like a measure with the feet marked on it, and no matter what I thought of that night, it had to be measured with the same rule.”

— Flora MacDonald Denison (1867-1921)