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).
“When we are lulled into somnolence by lack of challenge every molehill tends to become a mountain, every minor inconvenience an intolerable imposition.”
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.
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Colin Wilson 192
author 1931–2013Related quotes
“The tolerant liberal suddenly becomes very intolerant when their official religion is challenged.”
Online promotional material (6 June 2006).
2006
“Men do not stumble over mountains, but over molehills”
Reported in: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Agriculture (1973) Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-second Congress. p. 21
Attributed
“…except for the NCERT experts who specialise in making molehills of mountains, and vice versa.”
The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)
“Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.”
Announcement of the America 2000 Education Strategy (18 April 1991) What Work Requires of Schools Pg 2 http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS/whatwork/whatwork.pdf.