Date: 1665

"And, as the Exercise, I would perswade, will help to keep us from Idleness, so will it, to preserve us from harbouring evil Thoughts, which there is no such way to keep out of the Soul, as to keep her taken up with good ones; as Husbandmen, to rid a piece of rank Land of Weeds, do often find it ...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1709

An "early prejudice" may have "implanted in the mind" a "false persuasion"

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1709

A "false persuasion" "implanted in the mind" by prejudice may be rooted out

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: Tuesday, June 28, to Thursday, June 30, 1709

"For this reason, I sat by an eminent story-teller and politician who takes half an ounce in five seconds, and has mortgaged a pretty tenement near the town, merely to improve and dung his brains with this prolific powder."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Monday, September 17, 1711

"A Mind thus equal and uniform may be deserted by little fashionable Admirers and Followers, but will ever be had in Reverence by Souls like it self. The Branches of the Oak endure all the Seasons of the Year, though its Leaves fall off in Autumn; and these too will be restored with the returning...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: February 27, 1712

"It is certainly the proper Education we should give our selves, to be prepared for the ill Events and Accidents we are to meet with in a Life sentenced to be a Scene of Sorrow: But instead of this Expectation, we soften our selves with Prospects of constant Delight, and destroy in our Minds the ...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1732

"You must know, said he, that the mind of man may be fitly compared to a piece of land. What stubbing, ploughing, digging, and harrowing is to the one, that thinking, reflecting, examining is to the other."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"Each hath its proper culture; and as land that is suffered to lie waste and wild for a long tract of time will be overspread with brushwood, brambles, thorns, and such vegetables which have neither use nor beauty; even so there will not fail to sprout up in a neglected, uncultivated mind, a grea...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"Represent to yourself the man of mind, or human nature in general, that for so many ages had lain obnoxious to the frauds of designing, and the follies of weak men; how it must be overrun with prejudices and errors, what firm and deep roots they must have taken, and consequently how difficult a ...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"On the other hand, those who duly employ their faculties in the search of truth, take especial care to weed out of their minds, and extirpate all such notions or prejudices as were planted in them before they arrived at the free and entire use of reason."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)