For 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
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
ALDOUS HUXLEYIf 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.
ALDOUS HUXLEYAfter silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
ALDOUS HUXLEYThere is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
ALDOUS HUXLEYOne believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.
ALDOUS HUXLEYA 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.
ALDOUS HUXLEYTo be a fool at the right time is also an art.
ALDOUS HUXLEYThe 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.
ALDOUS HUXLEYChronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
ALDOUS HUXLEYIf human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.
ALDOUS HUXLEYHe accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
ALDOUS HUXLEYAddiction is an increasing desire for an act that gives less and less satisfaction
ALDOUS HUXLEYIf most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
ALDOUS HUXLEYThe goal in life is to discover that you’ve always been where you were supposed to be.
ALDOUS HUXLEYYour true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom.
ALDOUS HUXLEYPeople will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
ALDOUS HUXLEY