“The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling.”

— H. G. Wells, book The Outline of History

Source: The Outline of History (1920), Ch. 40

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H. G. Wells142

English writer 1866–1946

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 3 (p. 59).

“The conscious side of woman corresponds to the emotional side of man, not to his "mind." Mind makes up the soul, or better, the "animus" of woman, and just as the anima of a man consists of inferior relatedness, full of affect, so the animus of woman consists of inferior judgments, or better, opinions.”

C.G. Jung book Alchemical Studies

The Secret of the Golden Flower (1931) Commentary by C.G.Jung in CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P. 60

“People who live alone always have something on their minds that they would willingly share.”

Anton Chekhov book About Love

About Love (1898)

“Compared with the necessity of protecting ruling class privileges and prerogatives, the right of a man to express his mind goes for nothing.”

Scott Nearing (1883–1983) American activist

The Debs Decision https://ia902703.us.archive.org/33/items/TheDebsDecision/Debs.htm (1919) <br class="br">Context: Compared with the necessity of protecting ruling class privileges and prerogatives, the right of a man to express his mind goes for nothing. That is the lesson of history and that is what we are witnessing today. Men who have stirred up the people; men who have raised their voices in protest; men who thought straight; men who have loved their fellow men too much; men who have had conviction and courage and purpose; men who were willing to stick by their ideals—such men have suffered in every age.

“That the environment does wrongs to man’s mind today none will deny. These wrongs are not done because consciousness imprisons the instincts with the fetters of necessity; but because bourgeois man is unconscious of the determinism of his culture. Because of this the instincts are losing such freedom as they attained, are becoming crippled, and less free. Unconsciousness and inexperience, not consciousness and experience, are the gaolers of modern bourgeois man.”

Christopher Caudwell (1907–1937) British Marxist literary critic, journalist and writer

Further Studies in a Dying Culture (1949), Chapter IV: Consciousness: A Study in Bourgeois Psychology

“These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Quincy Adams (19 January 1780)

“The militarily-patriotic and the romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: The militarily-patriotic and the romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution. The notion of a sheep's paradise like that revolts, they say, our higher imagination. Where then would be the steeps of life? If war had ever stopped, we should have to re-invent it, on this view, to redeem life from flat degeneration.
Reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. It is a sort of sacrament. It's profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic.

“Research has been called good business, a necessity, a gamble, a game. It is none of these — it's a state of mind.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

“High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“A man may call himself a Christian—but the measure of his Christianity is the occupation of his mind and heart with the truth as it is in Jesus.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 376.

“The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling.”

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