Date: 1727

"We rather take Notice of this here; Because this Philosophy had made the Mind a Rasa Tabula, or a Blank Paper, or an Empty and Void Room without any Furniture, which therefore it was to Supply; And this is done by Storing it with it's Simple Ideas from Sensation and Reflection, and from thence D...

— Greene, Robert (c. 1678-1730)

Date: 1731

"And first of all, that the Soul is not a meer Rasa Tabula, a naked and Passive Thing, which has no innate Furniture or Activity its own, nor any thing at all in it, but what was impressed on it from without."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1734

"The question is, how this Familiarity arises? and how the Cabinet comes to be sensible of any thing that's put into it? A Scritore knows nothing of the Papers which the careful Banker locks up in it? Or a Glass, tho' it may be said to receive the Image of a Beau, and he really sees somewhat of h...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

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."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1755

"[...] a Storehouse, as it were, with Bags, Shelves, and Drawers, to lodge Ideas in, and, at the same Time, to compare these Impressions, such as a Seal makes upon Wax, (when Impressions are worn out, how are they to be renewed without a fresh Application of the Seal?) Footsteps, Traces, &c. and ...

— Richardson, J. of Newent (fl. 1755)

Date: 1968

"There is a little man who lives in one's head. The little man keeps a library."

— Fodor, Jerry (b. 1935)

Date: 1968

"This is, I think, perfectly correct. The little man [in one's head], as we might say, has in his library pamphlets entitled 'Tying One's Shoes', 'Speaking Latin', and 'Typing 'Afghanistan"', but no pamphlet entitled 'Being Intelligent' or 'Speaking Latin Fluently' or 'Typing "Afghanistan" with P...

— Fodor, Jerry (b. 1935)

Date: May 10, 2009

"Rather than storehouses of in-depth information, the web is turning our brains into indexes."

— Suderman, Peter

Date: September 5, 2011

"He [Derek Parfit] pictures his thinking self as a government minister sitting behind a large desk, who writes a question on a piece of paper and puts it in his out-tray. The minister then sits idly at the desk, twiddling his thumbs, while in some back room civil servants labor furiously, come up...

— MacFarquhar, Larissa

Date: March 5, 2015

"We all have crowded bookshelves in our heads crammed with texts for every person we know. They knock about in our skulls, falling off the shelves. We refer to them again and again, wearing the pages thin."

— Grossman-Heinze, Dahlia