Date: 1761

"The great Mr. Locke has resembled the infant mind to a rasa tabula, as he expresses it a clean piece of paper, with no inscriptions, tho' susceptible of them."

— Stiles, Ezra (1727-1795)

Date: 1762-1763

"Youth is the best season wherein to acquire knowledge, tis a season when we are freest from care, the mind is then unencumbered & more capable of receiving impressions than in an advanced age—in youth the mind is like a tender twig, which you may bend as you please, but in age like a sturdy oak ...

— Adams, Abigail (1744-1818)

Date: 1771

"If they had made no impression upon his heart"

— Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)

Date: August 4, 1778

"Behold! the soul shall waft away, / Whene'er we come to die, / And leave its cottage made of clay, / In twinkling of an eye."

— Hammon, Jupiter (1711-c.1800)

Date: November 28, 1783

"Our Maker has given us this faithful internal monitor [the conscience], and if you always obey it, you will always be prepared for the end of the world, or for a more certain event, which is death."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: October 1784

"She grows up, and of course mixes with those who are less interested: strangers will be sincere; she encounters the tongue of the flatterer, he will exaggerate, she finds herself possessed of accomplishments which have been studiously concealed from her, she throws the reins upon the neck of fan...

— Murray, Judith Sargent (1751-1820)

Date: 1785

"Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"Architecture being one of the fine arts, and as such within the department of a professor of the college, according to the new arrangement, perhaps a spark may fall on some young subjects of natural taste, kindle up their genius, and produce a reformation in this elegant and useful art."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"They [the Indians] will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)

Date: 1787

"But his imagination [Ignatius Sancho's] is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky."

— Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)