Date: 1740

"Some have said that the human Mind contained within it the Seeds of all Sciences; the Mind is indeed a Soil in which any of these Seeds may be sown, but it must be cultivated; and without an Husbandman it will continue a mere Tabula rasa, except what the Instincts write on it, without a p...

— Philalethes [pseud.]

Date: 1740

"Your Soul shall grow up as young Plants, and your Daughters be as the polished Corners of the Temple; and to sum up all Blessings in one,--Then shall the LORD be your GOD."

— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

A mother may "prepare the sweet Virgin Soil of [her childrens'] Minds to receive the Seeds of Virtue and Goodness so early, that as they grow up, one need only now a little Pruning, and now a little Watering, to make them the Ornaments and Delights of the Garden of this Life!

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"Why, the Trees of Resolution, and the Shrubs of cautious Fear, whose intertwining Roots had contributed to support the frail Mound, being loosen'd from their Hold, they, and the Bank itself, will be seen floating on the Surface of the triumphant Waters."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"Vertue's noble mark ... extending by degrees, / Shall grow like Letters carv'd on Trees / That widen with the Bark."

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1741, 1742, 1755

"A Miracle that can be accounted for no other Way, than by what has been said above of the Legislator's principal Concern in the Support of the Doctrine; and of the deep Root it takes in the Mind of Man, when once it is received, by its agreeable Nature."

— Warburton, William (1698-1779)

Date: 1741

"Yet all Persons are under some Obligation to improve their own Understanding, otherwise it will be a barren Desart, or a Forest overgrown grown with Weeds and Brambles."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"I Might give another plain Simile to confirm the Truth of this [mnemonic method]. What Horse or Carriage can take up and bear away all the various, rude and unweildy Loppings of a branchy Tree at once? But if they are divided yet further so as to be laid close, and bound up in a more uniform Man...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1742

"Socrates, and other ancients, seem to have had particular pleasure in running a parallel between agriculture and the improvement of the mind: But in no respect does the comparison or likeness hold more exactly than in this, that as the ground must be properly prepared for the reception and nouri...

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)

Date: 1742

"Instruction will be but thrown away, it cannot sink into the mind, or take firm root there, so as to fructify, if the mind be not pure and clean, pliable, or docile and open to truth and knowledge, but will quickly be chocked by the opposite illiberal temperature"

— Turnbull, George (1698-1748)