Date: 1759

"That medling Ape Imitation, as soon as we come to years of Indiscretion (so let me speak), snatches the Pen, and blots out nature's mark of Separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental Individuality"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"All these particulars, I say, consider'd, why should it seem altogether impossible, that heaven's latest editions of the human mind may be the most correct, and fair."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"His Inclination for Lady Dellwyn's Beauty had not Power enough to blot out of his Memory the principal View of all his Actions"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: September 1, 1759.

" Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and which new images are striving to obliterate."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1760

"A man this emptied and vacuated of self-conceit, these lines of natural pride, being blotted out, the soul is as a Tabula rasa, an unwritten table, to receive any impression of the law of God, that he pleases to put on it; and then his words are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to ...

— Binning, Hugh (1627-1653)

Date: 1760

"SUCH was her external Form, and though her Mind might, with the utmost Propriety, be said to resemble a mere Tabula rasa, yet was it, at the same time, of so naturally delicate a Texture, that it would retain the smallest Impression made on it by the Hands of Wisdom."

— Anonymous

Date: 1760-7

"For the next two whole stages, no subject would go down, but the heavy blow he had sustain'd from the loss of a son, whom it seems he had fully reckon'd upon in his mind, and register'd down in his pocket-book, as a second staff for his old age, in case Bobby should fail him."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"[M]any, therefore, may violate that rule of right, which the hand of the Almighty has written upon the living tablets of the heart"

— Hawkesworth, John (bap. 1720, d. 1773)

Date: 1761

"[Y]et were his offences against me even greater than they are, your example would teach me to blot them all from my mind"

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)