Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. He authored nearly fifty book novels and non-fiction works – as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Huxley was a humanist and pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism and universalism, addressing these subjects with works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945) – which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism – and The Doors of Perception (1954) – which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his vision of dystopia and utopia, respectively. May his quotes inspire you to take action so that you may live your dreams.
1. “We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends.” Aldous Huxley
2. “The business of a seer is to see; and if he involves himself in the kind of God-eclipsing activities which make seeing impossible, he betrays the trust which his fellows have tacitly placed in him.” Aldous Huxley
3. “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.” Aldous Huxley
4. “Good is a product of the ethical and spiritual artistry of individuals; it cannot be mass-produced.” Aldous Huxley
5. “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” Aldous Huxley
6. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.” Aldous Huxley
7. “It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.” Aldous Huxley
8. “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?” Aldous Huxley
9. “Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.” Aldous Huxley
10. “There’s only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.” Aldous Huxley
11. “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.” Aldous Huxley
12. “Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.” Aldous Huxley
13. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley
14. “I’d rather be myself.” Aldous Huxley
15. “The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” Aldous Huxley
16. “A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.” Aldous Huxley
17. “Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.” Aldous Huxley
18. “There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.” Aldous Huxley
19. “A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.” Aldous Huxley
20. “A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.” Aldous Huxley
21. “You should hurry up and acquire the cigar habit. It’s one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.” Aldous Huxley
22. “Experience teaches only the teachable.” Aldous Huxley
23. “Every man’s memory is his private literature.” Aldous Huxley
24. “Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.” Aldous Huxley
25. “Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.” Aldous Huxley
26. “There are things know and there things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” Aldous Huxley
27. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” Aldous Huxley
28. “So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.” Aldous Huxley
29. “Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” Aldous Huxley
30. “People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think,” Aldous Huxley
31. “Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” Aldous Huxley
32. “Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.” Aldous Huxley
33. “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” Aldous Huxley
34. “I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” Aldous Huxley
35. “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness.” Aldous Huxley
