Date: w. 1740-50

"Poor Cornet is a quiet creature: / One reads his mind in every feature."

— Amherst [later Thomas], Elizabeth Frances (c.1716-1779)

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

"I have quoted from Mr. Locke, that the human Mind is a Tabula rasa, that any Thing may be writ upon it, and that it cannot have any Thing unless it be write there, but will remain a Blank for ever; that there is a vast variety of Inscriptions made on it, which shews that the Stuff ...

— Philalethes [pseud.]

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"Here too is Paper; but it is as spotless as your Mind"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

Children are at a time in their life "when, like Wax, their tender Minds may be moulded into what Shape they please"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"I can write my whole Mind to you, tho' I cannot, from the most deplorable Infelicity, receive from you the wish'd for Favour of a few Lines in Return, written with the same Unreservedness."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"Early instruct your tender Youth / In Heav'n's unerring Law of Truth, / Engrave it on their Mind."

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1741

"Ere Vice the spotless Paper foul, / Imprint the Volume of the Soul / With Vertue's noble Mark!"

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1741

"Vertue's noble mark ... extending by degrees, / Shall grow like Letters carv'd on Trees / That widen with the Bark."

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1741

"If the Mind be as it were a rasa tabula in respect of the one, the same Reasons make it extremely probable that she must be so in respect of the other likewise"

— Anonymous