Date: 1851

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher."

— Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860)

Date: 1851

"For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over."

— Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860)

Date: 1871

"[T]he mynd of man first of hyt selfe ys a clene and pure tabul where ys no thyng payntyd or carvyd, but of hyt selfe apt & indyfferent to receyve al maner of pycturys, and image."

— Starkey, Thomas (c. 1495-1538)

Date: April, 1871

"Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo."

— Bagehot, William (1826-1877)

Date: w. before 1641, 1883

"[H]is face was the frontispice of his mind, hee knew not how to dissemble a thought."

— Smyth, John (1567-1640)

Date: 1908, 1911

"The soul of a good man had become empty of all psychological content, of grounds and consequences; it has become a pure white slate, upon which fate writes its absurd command, and this command will be followed blindly, rashly, and fiercely to the end."

— Lukács, Georg [György] (1885-1971)

Date: 1911

"A friend may almost literally pour out his soul into our waiting ears, or we may almost literally read it in his eyes."

— Lewis, Edwin Herbert (1866-1938)

Date: 1939

"My thinking relates to theology like the blotting page to the ink. It has entirely soaked itself full with it. If the blotting paper had its way, nothing that is written would remain."

— Benjamin, Walter (1892-1940)

Date: 1952

De la partie la plus noire de mon âme, à travers la zone hachurée me monte ce désir d'être tout à coup blanc [Out of the blackest part of my soul, through the zone of hachures, surges up this desire to be suddenly white].

— Fanon, Frantz (1925-1961)

Date: 1968

"There is a little man who lives in one's head. The little man keeps a library."

— Fodor, Jerry (b. 1935)