Aldous Huxley Quotes - Page 17

• Ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.

  Aldous Huxley

  War, Stress, People

  Aldous Huxley (2008). “Brave New World Revisited”, p.78, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can't help making fly-traps, and men can't help making symbols. That's what the human brain is there for - the turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols.

  Aldous Huxley

  Men, Brain, Spiders

  12 Copy quote

• Sunsets and death; death and therefore kisses, kisses and consequently birth and then death for yet another generation of sunset watchers.

  Aldous Huxley

  Sunset, Kissing, Generations

  10 Copy quote

• The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything

  Aldous Huxley

  Literature, Literary Devices, Devices

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

  10 Copy quote

• Most vices demand considerable self-sacrifices. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a vicious life is a life of uninterrupted pleasure. It is a life almost as wearisome and painful -- if strenuously led -- as Christian's in The Pilgrim's Progress.

  Aldous Huxley

  Christian, Mistake, Sacrifice

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2000). “Complete Essays: 1920-1925”, Ivan R Dee

  10 Copy quote

• Modern man's besetting temptation is to sacrifice his direct perceptions and spontaneous feelings to his reasoned reflections; to prefer in all circumstances the verdict of his intellect to that of his immediate intuitions.

  Aldous Huxley

  Sacrifice, Men, Reflection

  Aldous Huxley (2000). “Complete Essays: 1926-1929”, Ivan R Dee

  8 Copy quote

• Experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing, and hearing the significant thing, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and coordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

  Aldous Huxley

  Men, Significant Things, House

  Texts and Pretexts (1932) p. 5

  5 Copy quote

• The advertisement is one of the most interesting and difficult of modern literary forms.

  Aldous Huxley

  Interesting, Advertising, Modern

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2000). “Complete Essays: 1920-1925”, Ivan R Dee

  4 Copy quote

• Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give Pleasure to our Lovers or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power.

  Aldous Huxley

  Pain, Order, Giving

  Aldous Huxley (1983). “After Many a Summer Dies the Swan”, Harpercollins

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Cutting, Murder Victims, Two

  Aldous Huxley “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley”

  11 Copy quote

• War is often described as a law of nature-this is not true: Among the lower animals, war is unknown.

  Aldous Huxley

  War, Animal, Law

  Aldous Huxley (1937). “An Encyclopaedia of Pacifism”, London : Chatto & Windus

  6 Copy quote

• The ductless glands secrete among other things our moods, our aspirations, our philosophy of life.

  Aldous Huxley

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Science

  Aldous Huxley (2000). “Complete Essays: 1930-1935”, Ivan R Dee

  4 Copy quote

• At any given moment, life is completely senseless. But viewed over a period, it seems to reveal itself as an organism existing in time, having a purpose, trending in a certain direction.

  Aldous Huxley

  Life, Purpose, Moments

  8 Copy quote

• Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of each of us would some day depend upon our winning or losing a game of chess. Do you not think that we should all consider it to be our primary duty to learn at least the names of the pieces and how to position them on the chessboard?

  Aldous Huxley

  Winning, Thinking, Games

  6 Copy quote

• The best way to find things out is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun - bang it goes

  Aldous Huxley

  Gun, Fire, Bangs

  8 Copy quote

• This really revolutionary revolution is to be achieved, not in the external world, but in the souls and flesh of human beings.

  Aldous Huxley

  Soul, World, Flesh

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

  7 Copy quote

• Those who feel themselves despised do well to look despising.

  Aldous Huxley

  Looks, Wells, Feels

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

  8 Copy quote

• Happiness is never grand.

  Aldous Huxley

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Education, Philosophy

  Aldous Huxley (2000). “Complete Essays: 1926-1929”, Ivan R Dee

  11 Copy quote

• There are few who would not rather be taken in adultery than in provocation.

  Aldous Huxley

  Marriage, Taken, Adultery

  'Antic Hay' (1923) ch. 10

  7 Copy quote

• When life appears to be working against you, when your luck is down, when the supposedly wrong people show up, or when you slip up and return to old, self-defeating habits, recognize the signs that you're out of harmony with intention.

  Aldous Huxley

  Life, Motivational, Self

  8 Copy quote

• Only one more indispensable massacre of Capitalists or Communists or Fascists or Christians or Heretics, and there we are in the Golden Future.

  Aldous Huxley

  Christian, Golden, Communist

  Aldous Huxley (1953). “The collected works of Aldous Huxley”

  10 Copy quote

• For the born traveller, travelling is a besetting vice. Like other vices, it is imperious, demanding its victim's time, money, energy and the sacrifice of comfort.

  Aldous Huxley

  Travel, Sacrifice, Vices

  Aldous Huxley (1948). “The collected works of Aldous Huxley”

  9 Copy quote

• The self is coming from a state of pure awareness from the state of being. All the rest that comes about in a outward manifesation of the physical world, including fluctuations which end up as thoughts and actions

  Aldous Huxley

  Self, World, Action

  5 Copy quote

• If you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats.

  Aldous Huxley

  Writing, Cat, Novelists

  Aldous Huxley (2000). “Complete Essays: 1930-1935”, Ivan R Dee

  9 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

George Orwell

Thomas Huxley

Ray Bradbury

Julian Huxley

H. G. Wells

Timothy Leary

Laura Huxley

Charles Dickens