“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”

Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960)

Section 26
The True Believer (1951), Part Two: The Potential Converts
Context: Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom." It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Quia Imperfectum (1920)
And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing, p. 101

The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Weight Of Authority

Source: Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)
Context: Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict by Joan V. Bondurant (1965) University of California Press, Berkeley: CA, p. 174. Harijan (1 February 1942) p. 27
1940s