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: 1944; 2018

"My desk is the monument to my mind, and by the appearance of it, my mind must have intimate contact with garbage collectors."

— O'Connor, Flannery (1925-1964)

Date: 1946

"Icebergs behoove the soul / (both being self-made from elements least visible) / to see them so: fleshed, fair, erected indivisible."

— Bishop, Elizabeth (1911-1979)

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)

Date: 1949

"It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes."

— Orwell, George (1903-1950)

Date: March 17, 1950 [2005]

"One of those involuntary revealing thoughts one surprises, running like a rat through the muck-heap of my mind: Maybe I'll be able to afford that ikon if he goes."

— Friend, Donald (1915-1989)

Date: April 8, 1950

"Then, abruptly, familiarly, and, as usual, with no warning, he thought he felt his mind dislodge itself and teeter, like insecure luggage on an overhead rack."

— Salinger, J.D. (1919-2010)