Date: w. April 18, 1776; 1777

"Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1800

"The great Mr. Locke, and several other ingenious philosophers, have represented the human intellect, antecedent to its intercourse with external objects, as a tabula rasa, or a substance capable of receiving any impressions, but upon which no original impressions of any kind are stamped."

— Smellie, William (1740-1795)

Date: May 23, 1993

"'Your mind,' Admiral Crowe likes to tell university students, 'is a lot like a parachute -- it won't help you much if it doesn't open when you need it.'"

— Rosenberg, David Alan

Date: March 11, 2011

"The huge submerged bulk of the mental iceberg, with its stores of memory and acquired skills that have become automatic, like language, driving and etiquette, supplies people with the raw materials on which they can exercise their reason and decide what to think and what to do."

— Nagel, Thomas (b. 1937)