Date: 1708, 1714

"But the knowledg of our Passions in their very Seeds, the measuring well the Growth and Progress of Enthusiasm, and the judging rightly of its natural Force, and what command it has over our very Senses, may teach us to oppose more successfully those Delusions which come arm'd with the specious ...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: January, 1730

"There are in all Souls, (not perfect Ideots,) as in the midst of clos'd-up flowers, some seeds of knowledge and science, which never disclose and shew themselves, till the quick'ning sunshine of learning and education open the understanding, and discover those hidden seeds of natural knowledge, ...

— Anonymous

Date: 1740

"Some have said that the human Mind contained within it the Seeds of all Sciences; the Mind is indeed a Soil in which any of these Seeds may be sown, but it must be cultivated; and without an Husbandman it will continue a mere Tabula rasa, except what the Instincts write on it, without a p...

— Philalethes [pseud.]

Date: 1740

"Your Soul shall grow up as young Plants, and your Daughters be as the polished Corners of the Temple; and to sum up all Blessings in one,--Then shall the LORD be your GOD."

— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)

Date: 1754

"The human soul is so far from being furnished with forms and ideas to perceive all things by, or from being impregnated, I would rather say than printed over, with the seeds of universal knowledge, that we have no ideas till we receive passively the ideas of sensible qualities from without."

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

Date: 1754

"They are, if I may say so, of the mind's own growth, the elements of knowledge, more immediate, less relative, and less dependent than sensitive knowledge, as any man will be apt to think, who compares his ideas of remembering, recollecting, bare thought, and intenseness of thought, with those o...

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

Date: 1754

But when we enter into a serious and impartial detail concerning this knowledge, and analyse carefully what the great pretenders to it have given and give us daily for knowledge, we shall be obliged to confess, that the human intellect is rather a rank than a fertile soil, barren without due cult...

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

Date: 1773

"Human nature is ever liable to corruption, and has in it the seeds of every vice, as well as of every virtue; and the first will be continually shooting forth and growing up, if not carefully watched and rooted out as fast as they appear."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1782

"Vanity is a shoot from self-love--and self-love, Pope declares to be the spring of motion in the human breast."

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"Your infants growing--with the roseate bloom of health--minds cultured by their father--expanding daily in every improvement--blest little souls!--and happy--happy parents!"

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)