Date: 1706

"Let us make a Trial, Whether they that have been Scorched and Blacken'd by the Sun of Africa, may not come to have their Minds Healed by the more Benign Beams of the Sun of Righteousness."

— Mather, Cotton (1663-1728)

Date: 1706

"My Heart is full of Sin; My Life is full of Sin; I am under the wrath of God for Sin; I am a Slave to Sin and Satan."

— Mather, Cotton (1663-1728)

Date: 1682-1735

"I am this crumb of dust which is design'd / To make my Pen unto thy Praise alone, / And my dull Phancy I would gladly grinde / Unto an Edge on Zions Pretious Stone."

— Taylor, Edward (1642-1729)

Date: 1761

"The great Mr. Locke has resembled the infant mind to a rasa tabula, as he expresses it a clean piece of paper, with no inscriptions, tho' susceptible of them."

— Stiles, Ezra (1727-1795)

Date: 1771

"If they had made no impression upon his heart"

— Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)

Date: August 4, 1778

"Behold! the soul shall waft away, / Whene'er we come to die, / And leave its cottage made of clay, / In twinkling of an eye."

— Hammon, Jupiter (1711-c.1800)

Date: November 28, 1783

"Our Maker has given us this faithful internal monitor [the conscience], and if you always obey it, you will always be prepared for the end of the world, or for a more certain event, which is death."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1785

"Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"Architecture being one of the fine arts, and as such within the department of a professor of the college, according to the new arrangement, perhaps a spark may fall on some young subjects of natural taste, kindle up their genius, and produce a reformation in this elegant and useful art."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"They [the Indians] will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)