Date: 1670, rev. 1678
"Youth and white paper take any impression."
preview | full record— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)
Date: 1687, 1691
"And above all things, let us carefully observe this Precept, writ in the Book of their Law, but is not always imprinted in their Hearts, Never do to Others, no not thy Enemies, that which thou wouldst not have done to thy self."
preview | full record— Marana, Giovanni Paolo (1642-1693); Anonymous [William Bradshaw (fl. 1700) or Robert Midgley (1655?-1723)?]
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"But there is this farther Argument in it against their being innate: That these Characters, if they were native and original Impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those Persons, in whom yet we find no Footsteps of them."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Hence naturally flows the great variety of Opinions, concerning Moral Rules, which are to be found amongst Men, according to the different sorts of Happiness, they have a Prospect of, or propose to themselves: Which could not be, if practical Principles were innate, and imprinted in our Minds im...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Characters drawn on Dust, that the first breath of wind effaces; or Impressions made on a heap of Atoms, or animal Spirits, are altogether as useful, and render the Subject as noble, as the Thoughts of a Soul that perish in thinking; that once out of sight, are gone for ever, and leave no memory...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"These simple Ideas, when offered to the mind, the Understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are imprinted, nor blot them out, and make new ones in it self, than a mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the Images or Ideas, which, the Objects set before it, do therein produce."
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
"Though God has given us no innate Ideas of himself; though he has stamped no original Characters in our Minds, wherein we may read his Being: yet having furnished us with those Faculties, our Minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness: since we have Sense, Percepti...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1697
"We may imprint in our Minds, and fix things in Memory, by thinking upon their Contraries or Opposites; and we may by the same means better remember things that are almost blotted out of our Imagination."
preview | full record— D'Assigny, Marius (1643-1717)
Date: 1697
"Besides, long causes working in her mind, / And secret seeds of envy, lay behind; / Deep graven in her heart the doom remain'd / Of partial Paris, and her form disdain'd; / The grace bestow'd on ravish'd Ganymed, / Electra's glories, and her injur'd bed."
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Date: Dated August 6, 1707; 1711
"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."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)