Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English novelist, intellectual, satirist and essayist, who rose to prominence in the 20th century as one of the most important literary figures of the time. He was born in the influential Huxley family which was known throughout England for producing some of the finest minds in the country and he was no exception. He studied at Eton College and then at Oxford University, before embarking on a remarkably successful career as a writer. He was also the editor of the Oxford Poetry magazine during his life as a university student. Huxley’s most famous works as a novelist includes the novel ‘Brave New World’, ‘Point Counter Point’, ‘The Perennial Philosophy’ and ‘Island’ among others. He was also a prolific writer of non-fiction and one of the well-known works in that genre is the book ‘The Doors of Perception.’ Huxley had also worked on movie scripts and had also been an active travel writer. His life’s work as a literary figure of rare gift saw him elected to the Royal Society of Literature as the Champion of Literature. Here are some of the best quotes from Aldous Huxley’s life and work that would certainly appeal to the curious mind.
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Aldous Huxley
To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
Aldous Huxley
No social stability without individual stability.
Aldous Huxley
Ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.
Aldous Huxley
I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
Aldous Huxley
There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.
Aldous Huxley
One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.
We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters.
Aldous Huxley
All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.
Aldous Huxley
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace,
The prurient ape's defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.
The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred.
We don't want to change. Every change is a menace to stability.
Aldous Huxley
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood.
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.
The more a man knows about himself in relation to every kind of experience, the greater his chance of suddenly, one fine morning, realizing who in fact he is...
Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly.
Aldous Huxley
Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson–paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.
Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.
Aldous Huxley
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
Aldous Huxley
Universal education has created an immense class of what I may call the New Stupid, hungering for certainty yet unable to find it in the traditional myths and their rationalizations.
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery.
Aldous Huxley
Words form the thread on which we string our experiences.
Aldous Huxley
We shall be permitted to live on this planet only for as long as we treat all nature with compassion and intelligence.
Aldous Huxley
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?
 the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies. )
