Date: 1729

"Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague / Creep on the freeborn mind! and working there, / With the sharp tooth of many a new-form'd want, / Endless, and idle all, eat out the heart / Of liberty; the high conception blast; / The noble sentiment, the impatient scorn / Of base subjection, and the...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: May 6, 1736

"These first Characters therefore ought to be deeply and beautifully struck, and the Learning they express should be of great Price. And this, if timely Care be taken, may be done with ease because the Mind is then soft and tender: and because Truth and Right are by the nature of Things, as pleas...

— Denne, John (1693-1767)

Date: 1746

"Books, not well digested, blot the mind"

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1746

"So books, not well digested, blot the mind, / But make us - in search of wisdom - blind"

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1782

One may have a mind "Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1796

"The mind of a young woman lady should be clear and unsullied, like a sheet of white paper, or her own fairer face"

— Hays, Mary (1760-1843)