The pleasures of ignorance are as great, in their way, as the pleasures of knowledge.
ALDOUS HUXLEYHuman 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.
More Aldous Huxley Quotes
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As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends correspondingly to increase. And the dictator will do well to encourage that freedom…it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.
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The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.
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The world is an illusion, but an illusion which we must take seriously.
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If human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.
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Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.
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To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
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Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
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At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge?
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The nature of power is such that even those who have not sought it, but have had it forced upon them, tend to acquire a taste for more.
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Every man’s memory is his private literature.
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Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power.
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You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
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A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
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A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind.
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Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you’d collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.
ALDOUS HUXLEY