Aldous Huxley Quotes - Page 3

It is a scene of Satyrs and Nymphs, of pursuits and captures, provocative resistances followed by the enthusiastic surrender of lips to bearded lips, of panting bosoms to the impatience of rough hands, the whole accompanied by a babel of shouting, squealing and shrill laughter

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

...reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays....

He woke once more to external reality, looked round him, knew what he saw- knew
it, with a sinking sense of horror and disgust, for the recurrent delirium
of his days and nights, the nightmare of swarming indistinguishable sameness.

Believe it or not, a normal human being is one who can have an orgasm and is adjusted to his society.

However expressive, symbols can never be the things they stand for.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

Perhaps it's good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he's happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

It's a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it's healthy that people should have this experience.

As a lover or a dipsomaniac, I've no doubt of your being a most fascinating specimen. But as a combiner of forms, you must honestly admit it, you're a bore.

It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.

The physique of a Messiah. But too clever to believe in God or be convinced of his own mission. And too sensitive, even if he were convinced, to carry it out. His muscles would like to act and his feelings would like to believe; but his nerve-endings and his cleverness won't allow it.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

These,” he said gravely, “are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then most historical facts are unpleasant.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

Pain was a fascinating horror

All of us desire a better state of society. But society cannot become better before two great tasks are performed.Unless peace can be firmly established and the prevailing obsession with money and power profoundly modified, there is no hope of any desirable change being made.

But then every man is ludicrous if you look at him from outside, without taking into account what’s going on in his heart and mind.

The essential Not-self could be perceived very clearly in things and in living
creatures on the hither side of good and evil. In human beings it was visible only when they were in
repose, their minds untroubled, their bodies motionless.

Cine naiba se crede el ?”. Întrebarea nu i se adresa lui Cézanne în particular, ci speciei umane în general. Cine se credeau oamenii ?