Date: 1737

"From threshing Corn, he turns to thresh his Brains; / For which Her M------y allows him Grains."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1737, 1743

"It is not so much the being exempt from Faults, as the having overcome them, that is an Advantage to us; it being with the Follies of the Mind as with the Weeds of a Field, which, if destroyed and consumed upon the place of their Birth, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung the...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"We should manage our Thoughts in composing a Poem, as Shepherds do their Flowers in making a Garland; first select the Choicest, and then dispose them in the most proper places, where they give a Lusture to each other: Like the Feathers in Indian Crowns, which are so managed that every one refle...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1738

"And as the Mind in Infants, is like a white Sheet of Paper, where nothing is written; or like a tender Twig, which may be bent every Way; it is evident, that either Virtue or Vice may be planted in it."

— Guazzo, Stefano (1530-1593)

Date: January 1739

"The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Minds are the Soil, and Precepts are the Seeds: / The richer That, the ranker are the Weeds, / If Weeds it bear: But well repay'd the Toil, / That sows pure Virtue on a fertile Soil."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Like Twigs, entrusted to the Planter's Pains, / Who prunes, engrafts, indulges, or restrains, / Till in the Garden Ornament they yield, / And Fruit, which else had cumber'd up the Field: / Or that rich Ore we from the Indies bring, / Which bears, refin'd, the Image of the King; / But mix'd for-e...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

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: 1740

"Your Soul shall grow up as young Plants, and your Daughters be as the polished Corners of the Temple; and to sum up all Blessings in one,--Then shall the LORD be your GOD."

— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

A mother may "prepare the sweet Virgin Soil of [her childrens'] Minds to receive the Seeds of Virtue and Goodness so early, that as they grow up, one need only now a little Pruning, and now a little Watering, to make them the Ornaments and Delights of the Garden of this Life!

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)