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Home
Authors
Aldous Huxley
English
Novelist
About the author
It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Murder
#Victims
From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Men
#Experience
I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Losing
#Obscurity
If human beings were shown what they're really like, they'd either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#World
#Change
Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Will
#Power
#Gentlemen
#Idealism
One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Feeling
#Nation
#Wishes
#Patriotism
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Men
#History
That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Being
#Men
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Progress
Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Pleasure
Speed provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Pleasure
Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hallmark of true science.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Science
Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Sons
#Fathers
So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Will
#Men
#Worship
Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Excuses
Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Nothing
#World
#Science
#Darkness
Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Truth
Perhaps it's good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he's happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Want
#Life
#Art
#Artist
#Protest
It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
Orthodoxy is the diehard of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Forget
#World
#Thought
Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Work
#Feeling
#Man
#Sense
Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Dignity
#Country
#Office
#Importance
My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Mountains
#Father
My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Soul
#Fate
Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Life
#Thinking
#Effort
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Want
#Ignorance
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Infinite
Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Men
#History
Maybe this world is another planet's hell.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#World
#Hell
Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Freedom
#Liberty
#Pleasure
#Boredom
#Symbol
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Truth
Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Time
#Words
#Universe
The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Art
There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#God
#Sacrifice
#Self
#Knowledge
You should hurry up and acquire the cigar habit. It's one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Love
#Habit
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Will
#Mind
#Religion
#Solitude
There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Talent
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Perception
The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Life
#Enemy
#Freedom
#Anarchy
#Efficiency
The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#First
#Majority
#Fools
#Appearance
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Old
#Spirit
#Age
#Losing
#Genius
#Enthusiasm
The quality of moral behavior varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Quality
#Behavior
The proper study of mankind is books.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Study
#Books
#Mankind
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#People
#Forget
#Purpose
The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Ability
#Education
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#War
#Fact
#Politics
#Murder
#Victims
#Quarrels
The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Right
#Wrong
There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Universe
#Self
The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love - almost as violent and much more mischievous.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Love
#People
#Cruelty
The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Nothing
#History
#Age
#Fact
#Charm
There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Happiness
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Universe
#Self
There isn't any formula or method. You learn to love by loving - by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Love
#Attention
#Formula
Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Man
#Intelligence
Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Man
#Truth
#Errors
Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#World
#Culture
#Leisure
It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Life
#End
#Advice
People intoxicate themselves with work so they won't see how they really are.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#People
#Work
Every man's memory is his private literature.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Man
#Literature
#Memory
Chastity - the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Chastity
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Children
#Vision
#Intelligence
#Remarkable
#Curiosity
#Clarity
#Intolerance
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Life
#People
#Nature
#Consistency
Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Nothing
#Man
#Realism
De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#History
Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Man
#Doubt
That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Sleep
Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own image.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Work
#Art
#Man
#Europe
#Theory
Dream in a pragmatic way.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Dream
Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Race
Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Experience
Experience teaches only the teachable.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Experience
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Facts
Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Hell
#Intentions
It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Men
#Truth
#Beauty
#Goodness
#Discovery
Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#God
#Civilization
#Choice
#Happiness
#Medicine
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Truth
#Opinion
#Silence
Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#People
#Happiness
Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Life
#Man
#Power
Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Habit
Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Life
#Will
#Fight
#Self
#Personality
#Cunning
A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Labor
#Soul
A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Death
#Belief
#Hell
#Knowledge
#Majority
#Rumor
#Ambition
#Frustration
A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Chance
#Man
#Habit
#Development
A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#War
#Democracy
#Country
#Bureaucracy
A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Man
#Doubt
A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Will
#Freedom
#May
#Man
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Music
#Silence
All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Power
#Gods
Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Pleasure
#Pain
#Misery
#Importance
#Laughter
An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Sex
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#May
#Truth
#Lie
Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Beauty
#Wine
Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Influence
#Writers
What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#War
#Men
#Murder
#Blood
#Quarrel
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Man
#Dogs
#Popularity
Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Thought
#Knowledge
To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Wrong
#Countries
#Travel
Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Right
Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#God
#Strength
#Heart
#May
#Man
#Mind
#Road
#Soul
#Desire
#Hunger
#Travel
We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Age
We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Tragedy
#Comedy
What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#State
What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes - ah, they have all the necessary leisure.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Time
#Sons
#Heroes
#Leisure
The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
Aldous Huxley,
English
Novelist
#Name