4 quotations linked to Mental Efficiency, and Other Hints to Men and Women by or associated with Arnold Bennett, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Mental efficiency, individuality, self-development, reading, habit, breaking with the past, purpose and the cultivation of attention.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“Choose what interests you.”
Bennett recommends beginning intellectual cultivation with a subject capable of sustaining real attention instead of selecting study solely for appearance or prestige.
Source note: Mental Efficiency, discussion of reading and self-development. The short imperative belongs to Bennett’s practical advice about choosing a field for sustained personal study.
“The past is never more than an experiment.”
Past conduct provides information rather than an unchangeable verdict; Bennett uses that distinction to argue that present habits can still be revised.
Source note: Mental Efficiency, “Breaking with the Past.” The sentence frames prior experience as material for correction rather than a permanent identity.
“One man cannot tell another man where the other man wants to go.”
Self-development begins with aims that actually belong to the individual; another person can suggest methods but cannot supply a genuinely personal destination.
Source note: Mental Efficiency, opening discussion of self-development. Project Gutenberg #23347. Bennett is distinguishing method from personal purpose, not claiming that advice or collaboration has no value.
“My subject was mental efficiency as a means to self-development.”
Efficiency is presented as instrumental rather than an end in itself: better use of attention and thought is valuable insofar as it supports deliberate personal development.
Source note: Mental Efficiency. Bennett explicitly defines the scope of his argument as mental efficiency serving self-development; this is period conduct-of-life writing rather than modern cognitive-science evidence.