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Quote by Aldous Huxley

“Life's so ordinary that literature has to deal with the exceptional. Exceptional talent, power, social position, wealth.... Dramabegins where there's freedom of choice. And freedom of choice begins when social or psychological conditions are exceptional. That's why the inhabitants of imaginative literature have always been recruited from the pages of Who's Who.”

Quote by Aldous Huxley

Book:The collected works of Aldous Huxley

Work

The collected works of Aldous Huxley

This collection brings together a wide range of works by Aldous Huxley, including his influential novels, such as 'Brave New World' and 'Island,' as well as his insightful essays on philosophy, science, and culture. The collection offers a comprehensive overview of Huxley's intellectual journey and his exploration of complex themes like human nature, technological advancement, and the nature of reality. more

Author

Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher, renowned for his dystopian novel 'Brave New World'. Born on July 26, 1894, in Godalming, Surrey, England, he was the younger brother of the poet and critic Leonard Huxley. Huxley's works frequently delved into the interplay of science, politics, and philosophy, and he was a prominent figure in the literary movement known as the 'Lost Generation'. He passed away on November 22, 1963. more

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“The whole story of the universe is implicit in any part of it. The meditative eye can look through any single object and see, as through a window, the entire cosmos. Make the smell of roast duck in an old kitchen diaphanous and you will have a glimpse of everything, from the spiral nebulae to Mozart's music and the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. The artistic problem is to produce diaphanousness in spots, selecting the spots so as to reveal only the most humanly significant of distant vistas behind the near familiar object.”

“Real orgies are never so exciting as pornographic books. In a volume by Pierre Louys all the girls are young and their figures perfect; there's no hiccoughing or bad breath, no fatigue or boredom, no sudden recollections of unpaid bills or business letters unanswered, to interrupt the raptures. Art gives you the sensation, the thought, the feeling quite pure--chemically pure, I mean,... not morally.”

“Perhaps dirt is the necessary condition of beauty.... Perhaps hygiene and art can never be bedfellows. No Verdi, after all, without spitting into trumpets. No Duse without a crowd of malodorous bourgeois giving one another their coryzas. And think of the inexpugnable retreats for microbes prepared by Michelangelo in the curls of Moses' beard!”

Source: The collected works of Aldous Huxley

“If only people would realize that moral principles are like measles.... They have to be caught. And only the people who've got them can pass on the contagion.”

People Ifs Realizing Moral Principles Influence Caught Moral Principles Contagion Measles

Book:The collected works of Aldous Huxley

Source: The collected works of Aldous Huxley

“One of the great triumphs of the nineteenth century was to limit the connotation of the word "immoral" in such a way that, for practical purposes, only those were immoral who drank too much or made too copious love. Those who indulged in any or all of the other deadly sins could look down in righteous indignation on the lascivious and the gluttonous.... In the name of all lechers and boozers I most solemnly protest against the invidious distinction made to our prejudice.”

“Books have their destinies like men. And their fates, as made by generations of readers, are very different from the destinies foreseen for them by their authors. Gulliver's Travels, with a minimum of expurgation, has become a children's book; a new illustrated edition is produced every Christmas. That's what comes of saying profound things about humanity in terms of a fairy story.”

Source: Rotunda: a selection from the works of Aldous Huxley

“The inconveniences and horrors of the pox are perfectly well known to every one; but still the disease flourishes and spreads. Several million people were killed in a recent war and half the world ruined; but we all busily go on in courses that make another event of the same sort inevitable. Experientia docet? Experientia doesn't.”

People World Wells Stills War Courses Half Known Millions Learning Events Goes On Horror Disease Experience Spread Inevitable Well Known Ruined Futility Inconvenience Pox

Book:Antic Hay and the Gioconda Smile

Source: Antic Hay and the Gioconda Smile

“When we have peace, then we have a chance to save the planet. But if we are not united in peace, if we do not practice mindful consumption, we cannot save our planet.”

Ifs Chance United Practice Planets Consumption Our Planet Save The Planet Save Our Planet

Author:Nhat Hanh

“Most loverspicture to themselves, in their mistresses, a secret reality, beyond and different from what they see every day. They are in love with somebody else--their own invention. And sometimes there is a secret reality; and sometimes reality and appearance are the same. The discovery, in either case, is likely to cause a shock.”

Love Different Sometimes Reality Causes Secret Cases Discovery Appearance Invention Shock Mistress Disillusionment

Author:Aldous Huxley

“The Humanity of men and women is inversely proportional to their Numbers. A Crowd is no more human than an Avalanche or a Whirlwind. A rabble of men and women stands lower in the scale of moral and intellectual being than a herd of Swine or of Jackals.”

Men Humans Humanity Numbers Moral Intellectual Men And Women Crowds Scales Herds Whirlwind Swine Avalanches Jackals

Book:After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: A Novel

Source: After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: A Novel