Date: 1693

"But the learning Pages of Latin by heart, no more fits the Memory for Retention of any thing else, than the graving of one Sentence in Lead makes it the more capable of retaining firmly any other Characters. "

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1693

Locke's book is "designed for a Gentleman's Son, who being then very little, I considered only as white Paper, or Wax, to be moulded and fashioned as one pleases."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1697

"If we shou'd observe Pythagoras his Rule, to call our selves to an account every Evening, for the Actions and Thoughts of that Day, I believe we shou'd find many vacant spaces within the compass of a Day, which we cou'd not fill up with Thoughts."

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1698, 1751

"There is a natural and indelible Sence of Deity, and consequently of Religion, in the Mind of Man."

— Whichcote, Benjamin (1609-1683)

Date: 1699

"Those that were without a Law were a Law unto themselves, doing by nature the things contained in the Law, which shows the Law written in their hearts"

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1699

"Yet so you [Locke] seem to represent them and their Idea's; and you call them 'Characters, fair Characters, indeleble Characters, stampt, imprinted, engraven' in the Mind; for all those Expressions you use upon that occasion."

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1699

Locke denies not "that there are Natural Tendences imprinted on the Minds of Men"

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1701

"For I will here suppose the Soul, or Mind of Man, to be at first, rasa Tabula, like fair paper, that hath no connate Character or Idea's imprinted upon it (as that Learned Theorist Mr. Lock hath, I suppose, fully proved) and that it is not sensible of any thing at its coming...

— Cumberland, Richard (1632-1718)

Date: 1704

"My Soul's, as to that Affair, a clean sheet of Paper, a meer Tabula Rasa; therefore, Sir, you may impress any Characters in the World upon it; Mahometan, Jew, or Pagan, 'tis all a case to your poor distressed Servant"

— Brown, Thomas (bap. 1663, d. 1704)

Date: 1704

"It's a kind of tabula rasa, a Blank, that almost with the same Facility receives the Characters of Angel, and of Devil; but when once it's stained with Sin, when it's by-assed by ill Habits, and worse Principles, you will find it stubborn and rebellious."

— Darrell, William (1651-1721)