Date: 1665

Minds are "like smooth paper never writ upon, / When folded up, by some impression / Marks will remain it never had before, / And ne're return to former smoothness more."

— Howard, Sir Robert (1626-1698)

Date: 1667

"Grace engraves holiness unto / The Lord upon the heart, in character, / Indelible"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667

"A pure heart hath a golden Frontispice, / It loves fair vertue, and abhors foul vice."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"[T]he law of faith, / Working through love, upon their hearts shall write, / To guide them in all truth."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Spiritual laws by carnal power shall force / On every conscience; laws which none shall find / Left them inrolled, or what the Spirit within / Shall on the heart engrave."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1671

"[C]onfirm it within ... With my hand seal & heart--"

— Howard, Edward (bap. 1624, d. 1712)

Date: 1672?

"Our Hearts are Paper, Beauty is the Pen, / Which writes our Loves, and blots 'em out agen"

— Sedley, Sir Charles (1639-1701)

Date: 1673

" For tho the adulterations of art, can represent in the same Face beauty in one position, and deformity in another, yet nature is more sincere, and never meant a serene and clear forhead, should be the frontispiece to a cloudy tempestuous heart."

— Allestree, Richard (1611/2-1681)

Date: August, 1674; 1675

"Your bounties too him have long since deeply engraven his crimes in my Soul"

— Crowne, John (bap. 1641, d. 1712)

Date: 1675, 1746

"Were it so with the Soul (as some of the Philosophers have vainly imagined) to come into the World as an Ab rasa Tabula, a mere Blank or piece of white Paper, on which neither any Thing, written, nor any Blots; it would then be equally receptive of Good and Evil, and no more averse to the...

— Westminster Assembly (1643-1652)