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

"And our Minds represent to us those Tombs, to which we are approaching; where though the Brass and Marble remain, yet the Inscriptions are effaced by time, and the Imagery moulders away."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"How much the Constitution of our Bodies, and the make of our animal Spirits, are concerned in this; and whether the Temper of the Brain make this difference, that in some it retains the Characters drawn on it like Marble, in others like Free-stone, and in others little better than Sand, I shall ...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For to what purpose should Characters be graven on the Mind, by the Finger of God, which are not clearer there, than those, which are afterwards introduced, or cannot be distinguish'd from them?"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Those who "principle children well ... instil into the unwary, and as yet unprejudiced, understanding (for white paper receives any characters) those doctrines they would have them retain and profess."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Few mathematicians will believe that "all the diagrams they have drawn were but copies of those innate characters which nature had engraven upon their minds"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"If the organs or faculties of perception, like wax over-hardened with cold, will not receive the impression of the seal, from the usual impulse wont to imprint it; or, like wax of a temper too soft, will not hold it well when well imprinted; or else supposing the wax of a temper fit, but the sea...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"[W]hereas those innate principles are supposed to be quite of another nature; not coming into the mind by any accidental alterations in, or operations on the body; but, as it were, original characters impressed upon it, in the very first moment of its being and constitution."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For to apply this Answer with any tolerable Sence to our present Purpose, it must signify one of these two things; either, That as soon as Men come to the use of Reason, these supposed native Inscriptions come to be known, and observed by them; Or else, that the Use and Exercise of Men's Reason,...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)