"The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it."
— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Author
Date
Dated August 6, 1707; 1711
Metaphor
"The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it."
Metaphor in Context
The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it. And at length death, that grim tyrant, stops us in the midst of our career. The greatest conquerors have at last been conquered by death, which spares none, from the sceptre to the spade.
Categories
Provenance
Found again reading Maclean's John Locke and English Literature, (1962), p. 33
Citation
Over 40 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1711, 1713, 1720, 1721, 1728, 1730, 1731, 1735, 1736, 1741, 1742, 1747, 1751, 1755, 1756, 1757, 1758, 1761, 1765, 1766, 1767, 1768, 1772, 1774, 1778, 1784).
See Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. (London: Printed for John Morphew, near Stationers Hall, 1711). <Link to ECCO>
See Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. (London: Printed for John Morphew, near Stationers Hall, 1711). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
03/27/2005
