... one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Aldous Huxley More Quotes by Aldous Huxley More Quotes From Aldous Huxley Knowledge is porportionate to being... You know in virtue of what you are. Aldous Huxley virtue knows knowledge By comparison with a night-club, churches are positively gay. Aldous Huxley gay church night I don't think there is any incompatibility between science and mysticism . . . Immanent religion is the only form of religion in which there is no conflict at all, that I can see, between science and religion. Aldous Huxley conflict form thinking Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of each of us would some day depend upon our winning or losing a game of chess. Do you not think that we should all consider it to be our primary duty to learn at least the names of the pieces and how to position them on the chessboard? Aldous Huxley games winning thinking Drinking can not be sacramentalised except in religions which set no store on decorum. The worship of Dionysos or the Celtic god of beer was a loud and disorderly affair. Aldous Huxley worship drinking beer The critics don't interest me because they're concerned with what's past and done, while I'm concerned with what comes next. Aldous Huxley next done past In the contexts of religion and politics, words are not regarded as standing, rather inadequately, for things and events; on the contrary things and events are regarded as particular illustrations of words. Aldous Huxley religion-and-politics illustration events The old idea that words possess magical powers is false; but its falsity is the distortion of a very important truth. Words do have a magical effect - but not in the way that magicians supposed, and not on the objects they were trying to influence. Words are magical in the way they affect the minds of those who use them. Aldous Huxley important mind ideas A million million spermatozoa, All of them alive: Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah Dare hope to survive. Aldous Huxley poor alive sex Asceticism, it is evident, has a double motivation. If men and women torment their bodies, it is not only because they hope in this way to atone for past sins and avoid future punishments; it is also because they long to visit the mind's antipodes and do some visionary sightseeing. Aldous Huxley motivation men past No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment. Aldous Huxley holiday disappointment Good action and thoughts produce consequences which tend to neutralize, or put a stop to, the result of evil thoughts and actions. For as we give up the life of self (and note that, like forgiveness, repentance and humility are also special cases of giving), as we abandon what the German mystics called "the I, me, mine," we make ourselves progressively capable of receiving grace. By grace we are enabled to know reality more completely, and this knowledge of reality helps us to give up more of the life of selfhood - and so on, in a mounting spiral of illumination and regeneration. Aldous Huxley giving-up humility reality In life, man proposes, God disposes. Aldous Huxley propose men life If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay - in solid cash - the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy. Aldous Huxley hypocrisy hypocrite art I am entirely on the side of mystery. I mean, any attempt to explain away the mystery is ridiculous. I believe in the profound and unfathomable mystery of life which has a sort of divine quality about it. Aldous Huxley profound mean believe If Men and Women took their Pleasures as noisily as the Cats, what Londoner could ever hope to sleep of nights? Aldous Huxley cat sleep sex Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process. Aldous Huxley exercise character art I'm pretty good at inventing phrases - you know, the sort of words that suddenly make you jump, almost as though you'd sat on a pin, they seem so new and exciting even though they're about something hypnopaedically* obvious. But that doesn't seem enough. It's not enough for the phrases to be good; what you make with them ought to be good too. Aldous Huxley phrases enough sleep To associate with other like-minded people in small, purposeful groups is for the great majority of men and women a source of profound psychological satisfaction. Exclusiveness will add to the pleasure of being several, but at one; and secrecy will intensify it almost to ecstasy. Aldous Huxley men profound people Religion is always a patron of the arts, but its taste is by no means impeccable. Aldous Huxley mean art religion
