Date: 1594

"Hereby it cometh to pass that custom inuring the mind by long practice, and so leaving there a sensible impression, prevaileth more than reasonable persuasion what way soever."

— Hooker, Richard (1554-1600)

Date: 1614

"That there is a God; ... This is a common notion, and impression, sealed up in the minde of every man."

— Purchas, Samuel (bap. 1577, d. 1626)

Date: 1682

"The Body is but the Clog and Prisoner of the Mind; tossed up and down, and persecuted with Punishments, Violences, and Diseases; but the Mind it self is Sacred, and Eternal, and exempt from the Danger of all Actual Impression."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

Date: May 6, 1736

"These first Characters therefore ought to be deeply and beautifully struck, and the Learning they express should be of great Price. And this, if timely Care be taken, may be done with ease because the Mind is then soft and tender: and because Truth and Right are by the nature of Things, as pleas...

— Denne, John (1693-1767)

Date: Tuesday, August 7, 1750

"[T]hey seem always to be fully employed, or to be completely at ease without employment, to feel few intellectual miseries or pleasures, and to have no exuberance of understanding to lay out upon curiosity or caprice, but to have their minds exactly adapted to their bodies, with few other ideas ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, August 7, 1750

"But the images which memory presents are of a stubborn and untractable nature, the objects of remembrance have already existed, and left their signature behind them impressed upon the mind, so as to defy all attempts of rasure or of change."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, August 28, 1750

"Yet it too often happens that sorrow, thus lawfully entering, gains such a firm possession of the mind, that it is not afterwards to be ejected; the mournful ideas, first violently impressed and afterwards willingly received, so much engross the attention, as to predominate in every thought, to ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, September 4, 1750

"But it must be strongly impressed upon our minds that virtue is not to be pursued as one of the means to fame, but fame to be accepted as the only recompense which mortals can bestow on virtue; to be accepted with complacence, but not sought with eagerness."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, April 3, 1750

"He that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature, demonstrably multiplies the inlets to happiness; and, therefore, the younger part of my readers, to whom I dedicate this vernal speculation, must excuse me for calling upon them, to make use at once of the spring of the year, and the spri...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, September 22, 1750

"When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed, and wish, vainly wish, for his...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)