Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"Youth and white paper take any impression."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

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."

— 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...

— 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...

— 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."

— 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...

— 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."

— 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."

— 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."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1713, 1734

"You cannot say objects are in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on it, as the figure of a seal upon wax."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)