Date: 1795

"The infant mind has been compared to a tabula rasa, or sheet of clean paper: but there is this essential difference, as hath been well observed, between the opposite objects of comparison they are not both equally Indifferent to the inscription which they are to bear."

— Napleton, John (1738/9-1817)

Date: 1850

"The relation discovered, must be something remote from all the common tracks and sheep-walks made in the mind."

— Smith, Sydney (1771-1845)

Date: April, 1871

"There are cases where our intellect has gone through the arguments, and we give a clear assent to the conclusions. But our minds seem dry and unsatisfied."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"In cases like the Caliph Omar's, it governs all other desires, absorbs the whole nature, and rules the whole life."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"A hot flash seems to burn across the brain."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"In the same way, I think, experience proves that no one who has had real passionate conviction of a creed, the sort of emotion that burns hot upon the brain, can ever be indifferent to that creed again."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Many beliefs, in Coleridge's happy phrase, slumber in the 'dormitory of the soul'; they are present to the consciousness, but they incite to no action."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Strong convictions gave him a kind of cramp in the will, and he could not act on them."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: April, 1871

"Intensity. This is the main cause why the ideas that flash on the minds of seers, as in Scott's description, are believed; they come mostly when the nerves are exhausted by fasting, watching and longing; they have a peculiar brilliancy, and therefore they are believed."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)