Date: 1792

"For it is seldom done entirely, to speak with moderation, by the child itself; thus the master countenances falsehood, or winds the poor machine up to some extraordinary exertion, that injures the wheels, and stops the gradual improvement."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1798

"When once this generous desire of affection and esteem is raised in the mind, their exertions seem to be universal, and spontaneous: children are then no longer like machines, which require to be wound up regularly to perform certain revolutions; they are animated with a living principle, which ...

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: November 8, 1994

"I thought this is some terrific computer down here."

— Blakeslee, Sandra

Date: 1999

"As the brain gets more complex in the womb, then, like a dimmer switch, consciousness gradually grows and burgeons until, of course, in adulthood it reaches its particular pinnacles or depths."

— Greenfield, Susan (b. 1950)

Date: 1999

"On its own this trigger, as we can see from the earlier definition, is not going to generate consciousness. Imagine a candyfloss machine with a stick in the centre that then gathers more and more candyfloss as time goes on. Think of the epicentre as the stick in the centre, the burgeoning candy...

— Greenfield, Susan (b. 1950)

Date: June 14, 2011

"Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we’ll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena."

— Cohen, Patricia

Date: June 14, 2011

"They are a result of the way that the brain, a Rube Goldberg mental contraption, processes memory."

— Cohen, Patricia

Date: Aug 29, 2013

"Human mental bandwidth is finite."

— Badger, Emily

Date: May 30, 2013

"And the key to life is to develop an internal moral, emotional G.P.S. that can tell you which way to go."

— Winfrey, Oprah (b. January 29, 1954)

Date: January 11, 2014

"'Think about a fish tank,' says Dr. Nedergaard. 'If you have a tank and no filter, the fish will eventually die. So, how do the brain cells get rid of their waste? Where is their filter?'"

— Konnikova, Maria (b. 1984)