Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Novelist, Essayist

Aldous Huxley was a British writer known for his novel 'Brave New World', which critiques societal control and the loss of individuality.

Men People Brave New World Art Thinking World
Born
July 26, 1894
Died
November 22, 1963
Quotes
679
Rank
#81

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Aldous Huxley quotes (page 19 of 34)

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"Most ignorances are vincible, and in the greater number of cases stupidity is what the Buddha pronounced it to be, a sin. For, consciously, or subconsciously, it is with deliberation that we do not know or fail to understand-because incomprehension allows us, with a good conscience, to evade unpleasant obligations and responsibilities, because ignorance is the best excuse for going on doing what one likes, but ought not, to do."

Ignorance Responsibility Numbers
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"That’s what the human brain is there for—to turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols. Sometimes the symbols correspond fairly closely to some of the aspects of the external reality behind our experience; then you have science and common sense. Sometimes, on the contrary, the symbols have almost no connection with external reality; then you have paranoia and delirium. More often there’s a mixture, part realistic and part fantastic; that’s religion."

Reality Common Sense Brain
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"Somewhere in the rain, there will always be an abandoned dog that prevents you from being happy."

Dog Rain Pet
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"In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country."

Country Dope People
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"I'm sick. I've eaten civilisation and I'm sick."

Sick Civilisation
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"The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people."

Religious War Buddhism
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"A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."

Book Reading Writing
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"The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred."

Journey Long Intellectual
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"There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail."

Talent Virtue Substitutes
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"I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise."

Wise Angel Vanity
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"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."

Sacrifice Men Reflection
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"To write fiction, one needs a whole series of inspirations about people in an actual environment, and then a whole lot of work on the basis of those inspirations."

Inspiration Writing People
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"Those who feel themselves despised do well to look despising."

Looks Wells Feels
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"Reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays."

Holiday Reality Brave New World
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"What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes - ah, they have all the necessary leisure."

Hero Son Thinking
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"For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."

Philosophy Political Doubt
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"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."

Life Motivational Self
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"The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right."

Next Literature Prophet
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"The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity."

Self Feelings Outsiders
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"...we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as 'being in one's right mind."

Home Mind Reassuring
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