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Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948

Book by Aldous Huxley · 28 quotes · Men, Political, Action

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Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948 Quotes

“Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power.”

StillsPoliticalTechnologyPowerDemocracyProgressEconomicCapitalismExpectedNovelistsConcentrationFlourishingEconomic PowerCentralization
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught. These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious it makes little or no difference.”

MayLittlesPoliticalDifferencesReligiousTaughtDependsMethodDoctrineBeing TruePropagandaEmployedEffectivenessPerniciousTrue Or False
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“Asceticism, it is evident, has a double motivation. If men and women torment their bodies, it is not only because they hope in this way to atone for past sins and avoid future punishments; it is also because they long to visit the mind's antipodes and do some visionary sightseeing.”

IfsMenWayMindLongBodyPastMotivationSinMen And WomenPunishmentEvidentTormentVisionariesAsceticismSightseeingAntipodes
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“Visionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and 'going to heaven' is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individual experience.”

StillsIndividualHeavenLevelsHellDivineHorrorOrdinaryOppositesLiberationRealmsMysticalVisionariesDescentVantage PointGoing To HeavenMystical Experiences
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors.”

IfsWorldWayHumansMadeLightSeemsTodayActionPoliticalChoicesGivenChanceHuman BeingsPowerfulKnowledgeDemocracySocietyIgnorancePoliticianCapableEvidenceConcernedFairsElectionInstitutionsDemocraticAvailableVarietyAppealsNovelistsReasonableVotingNonsenseMost PowerfulIrrationalRationalityProceduresImpartCivil SocietyIrrationalityFreedom To ChooseChoose WiselyPolitical IdeologyPropagandist
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“This Power Elite directly employs several millions of the country´s working force in its factories, offices and stores, controls many millions more by lending them the money to buy its products, and, through its ownership of the media of mass communication, influences the thoughts, the feelings and the actions of virtually everybody. To parody the words of W. Churchill, never have so many been manipulated so much by few.”

CountryFeelingsActionForceMillionsInfluenceMediaProductsCommunicationOfficeMassStoresFactoriesElitesOwnershipParodyLendingMass Communication
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“Our business is to wake up. We have to find ways in which to detect the whole of reality in the one illusory part which our self-centered consciousness permits us to see. We must not live thoughtlessly, taking our illusion for the complete reality, but at the same time we must not live too thoughtfully in the sense of trying to escape from the dream state. We must be continuously on watch for ways in which we may enlarge our consciousness.”

WayTryingMaySelfStatesWholeDreamRealityConsciousnessWatchesIllusionWake UpAwakeningPermitSelf CenteredIllusory
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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“If humans were in fact the members of a truly social species, and if their individual differences were trifling and could be completely ironed out by appropriate conditioning, then, obviously, there would be no need for liberty and the State would be justified in persecuting the heretics who demanded it.”

IfsNeedsHumansStatesFactsWould BeIndividualSocialDifferencesLibertyMembersSpeciesAppropriateJustifiedConditioningHereticTriflingIndividual Differences
Book:Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948
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