Date: 1741

"If the Mind be as it were a rasa tabula in respect of the one, the same Reasons make it extremely probable that she must be so in respect of the other likewise"

— Anonymous

Date: 1742

"But if the Soul was like a Tabula Rasa, or a fair Sheet of Paper, (as Mr L -- says) it would be no more capable of having Knowledge of any kind excited in it, than a Sheet of Paper can have Knowledge excited in it."

— Anonymous

Date: 1744

"And, as the Mind cannot long continue a Tabula rasa, a meer Blank, but some Images will be impress'd upon it, we ought therefore to form good Habits and Propensities to Virtue."

— Anonymous

Date: 1745

"These were Virtues unknown to him, who like the Ungrateful lessen'd the Obligations he had to her, by viewing his own Merit in the flattering Glass, his Fancy held before him. This false Mirror soon turn'd the Scale in his Favour, attributing her Choice of him to his own good Sense, which had Ar...

— Anonymous

Date: 1745

"The Idea of her lov'd Orsino presented itself to her distracted Imagination like an incens'd Lover to demand an Account of her Conduct: Which made such an Impression on her Mind, that she could scarce find Amusements for a few Hours, in all the Pleasures that surrounded her."

— Anonymous

Date: 1748

The "Author of our Being, when he breathers into us the Breath of Life, and speaks us into Existence, leaves our Minds a pure Tabula rasa capable of any Impression, and free from all innate Prepossessions in favour of Vice or vicious Habits, but more susceptible from its own nature of virt...

— Anonymous

Date: 1748

"The Soul is created in a State of moral Rectitude, but receives its vicious Tinctures from the Body, and is warped into its perverse and crooked Disposition by the Influence of the Senses"

— Anonymous

Date: 1748

"Consequently, whenever a Man attempts to subdue his Passions, and to put them under the regular Government of their natural sovereign Reason, the irrational Part must submit to the rational, the Brute must yield to the Man, and the Soul in the Event gain the Superiority over every Passion or App...

— Anonymous

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