Date: 1697

"If all Cogitation be extinct, all our Ideas are extinct, so far as they are Cogitations, and seated in the Soul: So we must have them new imprest; we are, as it were, new born and begin the World again"

— Burnet, Thomas (c.1635-1715)

Date: 1698

"And, my Reason is, because, unless Men take Principles along with them, to guide their Thoughts right, and keep an Attentive Eye to them, while they thus Meditate; 'tis to be fear'd, their long Meditating will, by its frequent Dints, so imprint and fix what you have told them, in their Brain; an...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"This, I say, was evidently the Tenour of his Discourse; because, did not those Reasons of his, against the Sufficiency of our Senses to give us this Information, conclude; but that, notwithstanding all those Reasons could prove, the Senses might still imprint on our Mind those First Notions, his...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"For, in case those Impressions on our Mind could have been made by means of the Senses, as aforesaid; then those Impressions, or Notions, being the Immediate Foundation, on which is built all our Knowledge, could not be call'd, or resembl'd to Rubbish; nor compar'd to a Hole, to lay the Foundati...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: September 10, 1726

"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occ...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: 1737

"I thank you heartily for the new idea of life you there gave me; it will remain long with me, for it is very strongly impressed upon my imagination."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"A President of the council, or a star and garter will make no more impression upon my mind, at such a time, than the hearing of a bagpipe, or the sight of a poppet-show."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1754

"As the mind does not act till it is rouzed into action by external objects; so when it does act, it acts conformably to the suggestions it receives from these impressions, and takes with its first ideas the hints how to multiply, and improve them."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1754

"But a nature capable of sensation, that is of perception, that is of thought (to say nothing of spontaneous motion, of memory, nor of the passions) cannot be incapable of another mode of thinking, any more than finite extension can be capable of one figure alone, or a piece of wax that receives ...

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: 1771

"If they had made no impression upon his heart"

— Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)