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.
ALDOUS HUXLEYFor at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols
More Aldous Huxley Quotes
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life is short and information endless: nobody has time for everything
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Man is hypnotized by the glitter of his own gadgetry
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My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.
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Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb.
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Round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and tend to infect others with their discontents.
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Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman.
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The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
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Liberties are not given, they are taken.
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Higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue.
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People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.
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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.
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To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.
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The third petition of the Lord’s Prayer is repeated daily by millions who have not the slightest intention of letting anyone’s will be done but their own.
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People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It is a little embarrassing that after years and years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the best answer is – just be a little kinder.
ALDOUS HUXLEY