The Fanatic and the Fool March 2, 1930

Margaret Slattery, March 2, 1930
“Intolerance and an unwillingness to think have reached such heights in this country today that no questions of prohibition, censorship, or morals can be sanely discussed and solved. Greater desire for the truth and less reinforcement of ideas already held are urgently needed in the solution of problems of widespread public interest.
“The majority of people over 25 years of age have closed minds. Concentration is absolutely essential to success thinking. There must be a will to think. One useful way of thinking is to write two columns. In one column write what you know and in the other what you don’t know and want to know.
“Real thought means concentration. Yet books are read daily, news heard, and sermons and music wasted because many minds fail to retain anything in them. Great mobs think of nothing but millions of trifles that do not matter.
“A second kind of thought is ‘thinking in a straight line.’ All know it when they have to make up our minds on some matter relating to business or the welfare of the family. Creative thought was represented by Montaigne, Kant, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived withdrawn from the world and read only what they regarded as good for them.”
Q: Do what we eat and drink have some effect on our thinking?
A: A quart of old wine has improved many a mind.