Date: 1721, 1722

"There are few women abandoned enough to go this length; they all bear in their hearts a certain impression of virtue, naturally engraved on them, which though their education may weaken, it cannot destroy."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"This noble passion is indeed always engraved upon their hearts; but imagination and education mould it a thousand ways."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1787

"That frequently happens; and when once a false idea is impressed, it is very difficult to erase it, particularly at your age; as you are not yet capable of distinguishing the false from the true."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)

Date: 1787

"They converse not, they open not their mouths, they are silent, but they engrave their principles on the heart in indelible characters, instead of inconsistently crowding them on the memory."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)

Date: 1927

"As for the inner book of unknown symbols (symbols carved in relief they might have been, which my attention, as it explored my unconscious, groped for and stumbled against and followed the contours of, like a diver exploring the ocean-bed), if I tried to read them, no one could help me with any ...

— Proust, Marcel (1871-1922)

Date: 1927

"This book, more laborious to decipher than any other, is also the only one which has been dictated to us by reality, the only one of which the 'impression' has been printed in us by reality itself."

— Proust, Marcel (1871-1922)