Applied psychology is not inspirational at its source. It is scientific. But that does not imply that it is lacking in inspirational value. There is nothing more inspiring and stimulating than the laboriously unfolded truths about the workings of the human mind, its limitations, and its almost limitless possibilities. Inspiration that is founded on the cold facts of science possesses a double value. It is inspiration that is within possibility, not the inspiration that is beyond realization and which brings only disappointment and failure.
You have your desk and your office equipped with efficiency-increasing appliances. You put attachments on your car that increase its efficiency. Here is a personal question: Have you given as much attention to your personal mental efficiency? Are you laying your mental bricks with eighteen movements or with five?
~ Dr. Donald Laird, Increasing Personal Efficiency (1936)