Date: 1748

"And he labours hard to prove that these Ideas are not innate, but would have our Souls like a Blank Paper, a Rasa Tabula, ready to receive Ideas, but void of all; And affirms that these Ideas are the Foundation of all our Knowledge; and that they are conveyed to the Mind by external Objects."

— Anonymous [A Gentleman Late of the Temple, George Osborn]

Date: 1749

"The soul of man is originally a pure tabula rasa, capable of any impression either good or evil, and receives its bent from habits and education."

— Anonymous [Old Sportsman]

Date: June, 1753

"It is indeed a curious and interesting letter, and sufficient (if such a thing is possible) to make the Jacobites themselves ashamed of Jacobitism; but shews plainly, that lord Bolingbroke was a slave to his passions, passions too of the most malignant nature, and one who would stick at nothing ...

— Anonymous

Date: Thursday, September 4, 1755

"No; let me consider this room [a library] as the great charnel-house of human reason, where darkness and corruption dwell."

— Anonymous

Date: Thursday, December 25, 1755

"The mind as well as the stomach must have food fitted and prepared to it's taste and humour, or it will reject and loath it."

— Anonymous

Date: 1758

Some "stare like a second-sighted Scot, and, like him, see Things invisible by the sober Eye of Reason purged from the Films of Fancy"

— Anonymous [by the Author of "Emily; or, The History of a Natural Daughter]

Date: 1760

"SUCH was her external Form, and though her Mind might, with the utmost Propriety, be said to resemble a mere Tabula rasa, yet was it, at the same time, of so naturally delicate a Texture, that it would retain the smallest Impression made on it by the Hands of Wisdom."

— Anonymous

Date: 1760

"It is true, that the Want of Education, which her Mother's Poverty prevented her from bestowing, in a great Measure depressed those Seeds of Genius which were sown in her; yet, as the Spirit of a SHAKESPEAR would, under the most mountainous Oppression, have breathed forth some of its inextinguis...

— Anonymous

Date: 1762

The heart may be garrisoned with thoughts of a "wife conqu'ror"

— Author Unknown

Date: 1662, 1762

"Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil."

— The Church of England