Aldous Huxley Quotes & Interesting Thoughts
Who was Aldous Huxley?
Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) was an English writer, philosopher, and historian.
He is best known for his novels Brave New World and Island, as well as his non-fiction work The Doors of Perception.
Huxley was a member of the infamous Bloomsbury Group, and his work often explored the intersection of science, religion, and art. He was also a pacifist and an advocate for social reform.
What were Aldous Huxley’s views?
Huxley was a humanist and an agnostic. He believed that humans could improve their condition through education and social reform.
He was also interested in mysticism and the paranormal, and he experimented with mind-altering drugs like mescaline.
In Brave New World, Huxley warned of the dangers of technology and mass media, and the ways in which they could be used to control and manipulate people.
In Island, he created a utopia in which people lived in harmony with nature.
Why Are Aldous Huxley’s quotes applicable today?
Huxley was a pacifist who believed in the potential of humans, the limits that perception can have on us and the theological concept of universalism – that many ideas have universal application. His ideas and quotes are interesting to contemplate further.
Aldous Huxley Quotes
“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
“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” Aldous Huxley
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” Aldous Huxley
“Experience teaches only the teachable.” Aldous Huxley
“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
“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
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” Aldous Huxley
“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
Aldous Huxley Quotes About Life
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley
“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
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.” Aldous Huxley
“If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.” Aldous Huxley
“Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder.” Aldous Huxley
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” Aldous Huxley
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Aldous Huxley
“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” Aldous Huxley
“To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.” Aldous Huxley
“People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.” Aldous Huxley
“Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.” Aldous Huxley
“Every man’s memory is his private literature.” Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley Quotes From ‘Brave New World’
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” Aldous Huxley
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” Aldous Huxley
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” Aldous Huxley
“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.” Aldous Huxley
“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
Aldous Huxley Quotes on Perception
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” Aldous Huxley
“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” Aldous Huxley
“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” Aldous Huxley
“All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.” Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley Quotes on Technology
“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” Aldous Huxley
“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
Funny Aldous Huxley Quotes
“I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.” Aldous Huxley
“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.” Aldous Huxley
“Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions; it’s walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.” Aldous Huxley
“Cynical realism is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.” Aldous Huxley
“A fanatic is a man who consciously overcompensates a secret doubt.” Aldous Huxley
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