At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge?
ALDOUS HUXLEYAll war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder.
More Aldous Huxley Quotes
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After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
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Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
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Dictators can always consolidate their tyranny by an appeal to patriotism.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
The people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they’re the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
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.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
When the sun rises, it rises for everyone.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
Every ceiling reached becomes a floor.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
Don’t try to behave as though you were essentially sane and naturally good. We’re all demented sinners in the same cosmic boat – and the boat is perpetually sinking.
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The greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.
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He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
life is short and information endless: nobody has time for everything
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare, it is simply disgraceful.
ALDOUS HUXLEY -
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.
ALDOUS HUXLEY