Aldous Huxley
Brave New World, visionary dystopian novelist
Most quoted
"As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator (unless he is so foolish as to provoke resentment by forbidding it) will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope, the freedom to indulge in uninhibited sex will help reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their lot."
— from Brave New World Revisited, 1958
"The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend."
— from The Doors of Perception, 1954
"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and then dismiss the matter from your mind. No amount of brooding on the past will alter what has happened. But by brooding on the past you can ruin the present and the future. These are the things to which one should pay attention."
— from Brave New World, 1932
All quotes by Aldous Huxley (265)
The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.
To be well informed, one must read quickly a great deal, including the rubbish.
The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are men, and that men shave.
Amusing ourselves to death might be the fate of our culture.
The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, and I cannot resist it.
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually have a fear of all new things.
I am a writer and therefore an ass-hole.
The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the spirit over matter.
One of the many pleasures of old age is to be able to look back and see how you have been wrong.
If you want to be a leader, you must learn to be a follower.
The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal.
Words, words, words... They are the only things that are real.
Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.
One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.
To be able to choose between the two, the good and the bad, is the essence of freedom.
The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
A man can be happy without a woman, but he cannot be happy without a mind.
The world is a place of constant change. If we are to be happy, we must learn to adapt.
Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
Contemporaries of Aldous Huxley
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Aldous Huxley (1894–1963).