Date: 1924

"But circumstance cannot deepen or lighten the colour of a man’s mind; if we bring anything into the world it is the colour of our minds, and what is the colour of our minds but fate? and what is fate but character?"

— Moore, George Augustus (1852-1933)

Date: 1931

"My Waxen heart, when near the Flame, / Yields to th' imprinted mould" but "hardens in the Cold"

— Tickell, Thomas (1685-1740)

Date: 1936

"The monarch of the mind is a monkey wrench."

— Miller, Henry (1891-1980)

Date: 1936

"The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews."

— Auden, W. H. (1907-1973)

Date: 1937

"Figure on her waxen mind / Images of life refin'd."

— Philips, Ambrose (1674-1749)

Date: 1940

"The provinces of his body revolted, / The squares of his mind were empty, / Silence invaded the suburbs, / The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers."

— Auden, W. H. (1907-1973)

Date: 1940

"Well I really wouldn't care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I'd find. Instead of a heart, a hand-bag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter... which doesn't work."

— Raphaelson, Samson (1894-1983)

Date: 1942

"The squirming facts exceed the squamous mind, / If one may say so."

— Stevens, Wallace (1879-1955)

Date: 1947, 1958

"Religion, ethics, metaphysics – these are merely the 'spiritual' and 'inner' festivals of human anguish, ways of channelling the black waters of anxiety – and towards what abyss?"

— Lefebvre, Henri (1901-1991)

Date: 1949

"Or, to use another simile, mental processes are 'overheard' by the mind whose processes they are, somewhat as a speaker overhears the words he is himself uttering."

— Ryle, Gilbert (1900-1976)