Date: 1708, 1737, 1742

"Je ne suis nullement pour la tabula rasa de Aristote, & il y a quelque chose de solide dans ce que Platon appelloit le reminiscence."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: July 23, 1703; 1714

"Time, I daily find, blots out apace the little Stock of my Mind, and has disabled me from furnishing all that I would willingly contribute to the Memory of that Learned Man.."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: March 25, 1758

"Non, mon digne ami; ce n’est point sur quelques feuilles éparses qu’il faut aller chercher la loi de Dieu, mais dans le coeur de l’homme, où sa main daigna l’écrire. [It is not at all in a few sparse pages that we must seek for God's law, but in the human heart, where His hand deigned to write."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)

Date: 1782

"She has given you besides some perspicuity, which qualifies you to distinguish interesting objects; a warmth of imagination which enables you to think with quickness; you often extract useful reflections from objects which presented none to my mind: you have a tender and a well meaning heart, yo...

— St. John de Crèvecoeur, J. Hector (1735-1813)

Date: 1782

"Oh! lads, beware the month of May;--for you blest girls--nature decked out--as in a birth-day suit--courts you with all its sweets--where-e'er you tread--the grass and wanton flowerets fondly kiss your feet--and humbly bow their pretty heads--to the gentle sweepings of your under-petticoats--the...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1794

"The mind is not a rasa tabula, though, at the same time, it must be allowed, we gain no actual knowledge of the latent ideas which it possesses, but as they are awakened by reflection and experience."

— Sullivan, Richard Joseph, Sir (1752-1806)

Date: 1794

"The rasa tabula will not allow us to have mental ideas."

— Sullivan, Richard Joseph, Sir (1752-1806)