“Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills”

— Confucius

Reported in: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Agriculture (1973) Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-second Congress. p. 21
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Confucius 269

Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551–-479 BC

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“A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 am and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 pm to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished even before lunch.”

Fred Allen (1894–1956) comedian

Treadmill to Oblivion http://books.google.com/books?id=8IC6ZSGPAAYC&q="A+molehill+man+is+a+pseudo+busy+executive+who+comes+to+work+at+9+am+and+finds+a+molehill+on+his+desk+He+has+until+5+pm+to+make+this+molehill+into+a+mountain+An+accomplished+molehill+man+will+often+have+his+mountain+finished+even+before+lunch"&pg=PA27#v=onepage (1954).

“… and as to what may be in this book, do not feel timid nor hesitate to enter. There are more mountains than molehills …”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

caption to the frontispiece, p. ii
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“…except for the NCERT experts who specialise in making molehills of mountains, and vice versa.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

“Over the mountains,
And over the waves,
Over the fountains,
And under the graves;
Over the floods that are deepest,
Which do Neptune obey;
Over the rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.”

Thomas Percy (Bishop of Dromore)

"Love Will Find Out the Way"; in its published form this is suspected to have been extensively written by Percy himself; it was later used by Pierre de Beaumarchais in Act III of The Marriage of Figaro (1778).
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765)

“The expression "Making a mountain out of a molehill" simply means making a big deal out of something that is actually a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came about. Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they have never caused anyone harm except for maybe a stubbed toe if you were walking around the wilderness without any shoes on. Mountains, however, are very large mounds of earth and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes, two countries fight over who really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy or wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a war or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe.”

Daniel Handler book The Austere Academy

The Austere Academy (2000)

“Man is the animal that draws lines which he himself then stumbles over.”

Piet Hein (1905–1996) Danish puzzle designer, mathematician, author, poet

As quoted in Scandinavian Review (2003), by the American-Scandinavian Foundation, p. 18
Context: Man is the animal that draws lines which he himself then stumbles over. In the whole pattern of civilization there have been two tendencies, one toward straight lines and rectangular patterns and one toward circular lines. There are reasons, mechanical and psychological, for both tendencies. Things made with straight lines fit well together and save space. And we can move easily — physically or mentally — around things made with round lines. But we are in a straitjacket, having to accept one or the other, when often some intermediate form would be better.

“Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

"Early Forms of Liability," Lecture I from The Common Law. (1909).
1900s

“If fools claim that they jumped over six mountains, agree to it. It is not worth fighting over.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Tripadis

“When we are lulled into somnolence by lack of challenge every molehill tends to become a mountain, every minor inconvenience an intolerable imposition.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Introduction, p. xiii
Bernard Shaw: A Reassessment (1969)
Context: When we are lulled into somnolence by lack of challenge every molehill tends to become a mountain, every minor inconvenience an intolerable imposition. For a self-chosen reality tends to become a prison. The factors that protect and insulate civilized man can easily end by suffocating him unless he possesses a high degree of self-discipline, the 'highly developed vital sense' that Shaw speaks of. And since clever and sensitive people are inclined to lack self-discipline, a high degree of culture usually involves a high degree of pessimism. This is what has happened to Western civilisation over the past two centuries. It explains why so many distinguished artists, writers and musicians have taken such a negative view of the human situation.

“What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land (1922), Line 367 et seq.

“Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills”

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Confucius 269

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