Date: 1765

"[F]or 'tis a known Observation, that a young Mind is like a white Sheet of Paper, on which may be inscribed the most beautiful Images, as well as the ugliest Deformities."

— Anonymous

Date: 1765

"Do thou O Tablet, either both, or nothing; either let thy words and sense go together, or be thy bosom a rasa tabula."

— Warburton, William (1698-1779)

Date: 1765

"Are your thoughts by Justice sway'd, / And in Reason's balance weigh'd?"

— Merrick, James (1720-1769)

Date: 1765

"There is the question whether the soul in itself is completely blank like a writing tablet on which nothing has as yet been written--a tabula rasa--as Aristotle and the author of the Essay maintain, and whether everything which is inscribed there comes solely from the senses and ex...

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1765

"Modern philosophers give them other fine names and Julius Scaliger, in particular, used to call them "seeds of eternity" and also "zopyra"--meaning living fires or flashes of light hidden inside us but made visible by stimulation of the senses, as sparks can be struck by steel."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1765

"I have also used the analogy of a veined block of marble, as opposed to an entirely homogenous block of marble, or to a blank tablet--what the philosophers call a tabula rasa"

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1765

"That is, a sentient or thinking being is not a mechanical thing like a watch or a mill: one cannot conceive of sizes and shapes and motions combining mechanically to produce something which thinks, and senses too, in a mass where [formerly] there was nothing of the kind--something which would li...

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Date: 1765, 1770

"Wonder they cannot blush, they do not feel, / They must be harden'd like an heart of steel."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)

Date: 1765

"Nature has stamped an original impression on certain minds, which Education may greatly alter or efface, but seldom so entirely as to prevent its traces being seen by an accurate observer."

— Gregory, John (1724-1773)

Date: 1765

"Or, greatly daring in his Country's cause, / Whose heaven-taught soul the aweful plan design'd, / Whence Power stood trembling at the voice of Laws, / Whence soar'd on Freedom's wing th'ethereal mind."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)