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 mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
The world is a beautiful place, and it's worth fighting for.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
The most important of all the sciences is the science of human beings.
We are living in a world where the means of communication are so efficient that we are in danger of being overwhelmed by information.
The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been achieved, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing something.
The desire for power is the most insatiable of all human desires.
The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
The highest and most difficult achievement of all is to be able to live in the present moment.
We are all of us, to some extent, the victims of our own propaganda.
The human mind is a device for measuring the immeasurable.
The greatest lesson that I have learned in life is to be grateful for everything.
The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is we who are in disorder.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
The more powerful the means of communication, the more dangerous it is to entrust them to a single authority.
Contemporaries of Aldous Huxley
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Aldous Huxley (1894–1963).