Date: February 4, 1752

"My parents, though otherwise not great philosophers, knew the force of early education, and took care that the blank of my understanding should be filled with impressions of the value of money."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1753

"These divine foundations can never be shaken; all the good that is imprinted upon this rasa tabula can never be effaced; this holy favour with which a new vessel is imbued, will last a long time."

— Du Bosc, Jacques (d. 1660)

Date: 1754

"And so Dr. Edwards remarks of Socinus, that Adam, according to Him, had only the Faculty of Understanding, but none of the Accomplishments of it: His Mind being a pure rasa tabula, capable indeed of any Impressions, but having no Characters of Wisdom engraven upon it, by the Finger of God, when ...

— Holloway, Benjamin (1690/1-1759)

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: 1755

"[...] a Storehouse, as it were, with Bags, Shelves, and Drawers, to lodge Ideas in, and, at the same Time, to compare these Impressions, such as a Seal makes upon Wax, (when Impressions are worn out, how are they to be renewed without a fresh Application of the Seal?) Footsteps, Traces, &c. and ...

— Richardson, J. of Newent (fl. 1755)

Date: 1755

"Now if the human understanding be, essentially and originally, a tabula rasa, susceptible of impression from the occurrence of every casual object, then the ideas it receives thereby will be the fountain, and, as it were, the materials of all its future proficiencies; and the number and e...

— Sharp, William, Vicar of Long Burton

Date: w. 1753-1758

"Si la loi naturelle n'était écrite que dans la raison humaine, elle serait peu capable de diriger la plupart de nos actions. Mais elles est encore gravée dans le coeur de l'homme en caractères ineffaçables; et c'est là qu'elle lui parle plus fortement que tous les préceptes des philosophes; c'es...

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)

Date: 1756-9

"From their cradle she instilled into them the most perfect maxims of piety, and contempt of the world. the ancient Romans dreaded nothing more in the education of youth than their being ill taught the first principles of the sciences; it being more difficult to unlearn the errours then imbibed, ...

— Butler, Alban (1709-1773)

Date: 1756

"This heart is become a mere rasa tabula; you must help it to the [GREEK CHARACTERS], you must lay in it the foundation of natural religion, (i.e. "the dictates of common sense, for natural religion, according to Mr. H. is nothing else,) if you would raise the superstr...

— Patten, Thomas (1714-1790)

Date: 1756

"But the Truth is, this unnatural Power corrupts both the Heart, and the Understanding. And to prevent the least Hope of Amendment, a King is ever surrounded by a Crowd of infamous Flatterers, who find their Account in keeping him from the least Light of Reason, till all Ideas of Rectitude and Ju...

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)