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Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley Quotes

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Famous Aldous Huxley Quotes

“This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.”

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Author:Aldous Huxley
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“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend”

MenLifeTryingSelfForeverDoorsMysterySocietyIgnoranceWallSatisfiedReasoningWiserPsychedelicSystematicUnfathomablePsychedelic ExperienceHuxleyDoors Of Perception
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“To the exponents of the Perennial Philosophy, the question whether Progress is inevitable or even real is not a matter of primary importance. For them, the important thing is that individual men and women should come to the unitive knowledge of the divine Ground, and what interests them in regard to the social environment is not its progressiveness or non-progressiveness (whatever those terms may mean), but the degree to which it helps or hinders individuals in the their advance towards man's final end.”

MenShouldMayMeanImportantRealEndsMatterPhilosophyHelpingIndividualSocialTermInterestEnvironmentProgressDivineDegreesMen And WomenImportanceRegardImportant ThingsFinalsPrimariesInevitableHinderExponentsSocial Environment
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“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.”

MenDoeMatterMomentsHappensHouseUnderstandingAttentionSeeingExperienceHearingIntuitionSignificantPay AttentionSensibilityRight MomentSignificant ThingsCoordinating
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

MenTwoFactsMightDemocracyHappenedPossibilityCommunicationDevelopmentIndustryMassConcernedUniversalAccountsInfiniteRegardPressesWesternBeing TruePropagandaAppetiteDistractionCapitalistIrrelevantLiteracyUnrealFree PressBrave New World FreedomMass Communication
Book:Brave New World Revisited
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“One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.”

MenHumansMadeReasonCharacterFactsHomeSocialExistenceForeverFindingsCreatingOrganizationVictimMonstersTragicConvenienceHuman ExistenceSocial Organization
Book:Complete Essays: 1939-1956
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“Compared with that of Taoists and Far Eastern Buddhists, the Christian attitude toward Nature has been curiously insensitive and often downright domineering and violent. Taking their cue from an unfortunate remark in Genesis, Catholic moralists have regarded animals as mere things which men do right to regard for their own ends. . . .”

MenHas BeensEndsChristianAnimalAttitudeChristianityRegardCatholicMereViolentBuddhistVegetarianUnfortunateEasternJudaismRemarksGenesisInsensitiveMoralist
Author:Aldous Huxley
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“I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. 'The first thing,' I said, 'is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.'”

MenShouldWritingFirstsLongSaidYoungPoliticalRealizingKnowingMetsPaperAmbitionProfessionNovelistsYoung ManPensBottlesLong AgoInk
Book:Complete Essays: 1930-1935
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“Men have always been a prey to distractions, which arethe original sins of the mind; but never before today has an attempt been made to organize and exploit distractions, to make of them, because of their economic importance, the core and vital center of human life, to idealize them as the highest manifestations of mental activity. Ours is an age of systematized irrelevances, and the imbecile within us has become one of the Titans, upon whose shoulders rests the weight of the social and economic system”

MenMindHumansMadeAgeTodaySocialSinEconomicActivityHighestWeightImportanceOriginalsCoreShouldersHuman LifeManifestationDistractionOrganizePreyExploitsEconomic SystemsOriginal SinImbecilesOrigin Of LifeTitansIrrelevance
Book:Huxley and God: essays
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“The brotherhood of men does not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same.”

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Book:Complete Essays: 1926-1929
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“Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.”

MenMayWould BeRememberPoliticalCoursesEvilPoliticsNaturalActingSocietyPoliticianBehaviorNormalPaidOneselfCommitHypocrisyCantLeatherTributeCynicMan Of God
Book:Complete Essays: 1939-1956
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“To associate with other like-minded people in small, purposeful groups is for the great majority of men and women a source of profound psychological satisfaction. Exclusiveness will add to the pleasure of being several, but at one; and secrecy will intensify it almost to ecstasy.”

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Book:Complete Essays: 1930-1935
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“Assemble a mob of men and women previously conditioned by a daily reading of the newspapers; treat them to amplified band music, bright lights...and in next to no time you can reduce them to a state of almost mindless subhumanity. Never before have so few been in a position to make fools, maniacs, or criminals of so many.”

MenWorldStatesLightReadingNextMoneyDemocracyPositionFoolBandMen And WomenTreatsCriminalsNewspapersSocialismMindlessManiacsBright Lights
Book:The Devils of Loudun
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