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The 42 best quotes of Aldous Huxley, a dystopian writer

The 42 best quotes of Aldous Huxley, a dystopian writer

March 9, 2024

Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963) was a renowned philosopher and writer of essays and novels born in Godalming, England. Author of dystopian works of great value for social criticism of his time, he achieved international popularity with A Happy World. He also has other books as the doors of perception or the island, works equally acclaimed.

In his tender youth, when he was only 16 years old, Huxley suddenly suffered a disease and was practically blind. With remarkable tenacity and willpower, Huxley learned to read in Braille. Luckily, he was able to recover much of his vision over the years.

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Quotes and famous quotations from Aldous Huxley

Tireless traveler, Huxley discovers a world in which the forces of power dominate the masses at pleasure, submissive and entertaining .


In this post we will know some of the best phrases of Aldous Huxley. These are famous quotes that have gone down in history due to their depth.

1. A lie with interest can be uncovered by a boring truth.

On the power of manipulation, especially in the media.

2. Seeing ourselves as others see us is an extremely convenient gift.

The vision that others have of us and the gift of knowing how to recognize ourselves in those external views.

3. All men are gods to their dog. That's why there are people who love their dogs more than men.

Controversial phrase about the love between man and dog.

4. A real orgy never excites as much as a pornographic book.

In the imagination is the best possible sex.


5. Knowledge is relatively easy. To want and act according to what one would like, is always harder.

Pure knowledge against ethics.

6. Civilization is, among other things, the process by which the primitive herds are transformed into an analogy, rough and mechanical, of the organic communities of social insects.

A great metaphor to understand the development of societies.

7. The bourgeois is the perfect domesticated human animal.

A criticism of Aldous Huxley to small entrepreneurs.

8. There is at least one corner of the universe that you can certainly improve, and you are yourself.

On the ability to promote a change starting with oneself.

9. Happiness is never great.

According to this great Huxley phrase, there is always some aspect of our existence that can worry us.

10. We participate in a tragedy; in a comedy we only look.

Life history itself is always lived with a certain distressing touch.


11. Each generation thinks that it can be smarter than the previous one.

A superb feature that characterizes evolution.

12. But I do not want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want the true risk, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want the sin.

On his desire for freedom and risk.

13. Words can be like X-rays if they are used properly: they go through everything. You read them and they pass through you. This is one of the things that I try to teach my students: to write in a penetrating way.

One of those phrases by Aldous Huxley that show us his pedagogical facet.

14. The good of humanity must be that each one enjoy to the maximum the happiness that he / she can, without diminishing the happiness of others.

Live and let live.

15. Neighbors that one never sees up close are ideal and perfect neighbors.

Ironic phrase about life in community.

16. The silent man does not bear witness against himself.

One of the keys to discretion, according to Huxley.

17. Maybe, only geniuses are real men.

A somewhat reductionist vision of manhood.

18. There are three kinds of intelligence: human intelligence, animal intelligence and military intelligence.

On the types of intelligence, in an ironic famous quote by Aldous Huxley.

19. Love scares away fear and, reciprocally fear scares away love. And not only to love does fear drive out; also to intelligence, goodness, every thought of beauty and truth, and only the silent despair remains; and in the end, fear comes to expel mankind itself from man.

A quote about love and the experience of falling in love.

20. In most cases ignorance is something surmountable. We do not know why we do not want to know.

Great reflection on our underexploited capacities.

21. The more sinister the wishes of a politician, the more pompous, in general, the nobility of his language becomes.

Demagogy often goes hand in hand with bombast and presumptuousness.

22The secret of genius is to preserve the spirit of the child until old age, which means never lose enthusiasm.

A maxim in which many great thinkers agree.

23. Perhaps the greatest lesson in history is that no one learned the lessons of history.

One of Huxley's phrases that have transcended the most.

24. It is never the same to know the truth for oneself than to have to listen to it for another.

It is always more comforting to discover things for oneself.

25. Facts do not cease to exist even if they are ignored.

A sample of his philosophical materialism.

26. The whole is present even in the broken pieces.

In line with the previous one.

27. Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.

We are able to get ahead thanks to resilience and willpower.

28. Habit converts sumptuous pleasures into daily necessities.

Greatness is in authority, according to this phrase of Aldous Huxley.

29. Technological progress has only provided us with more efficient means to go backwards.

On the paradoxical regression brought by technological advances.

30. Pain is a horror that fascinates.

Nothing more disturbing than seeing hundreds of people enjoying the suffering of others.

31. To doubt is to have two thoughts.

Between two waters, between two roads.

32. Wherever there is an excessive specialization, an excess of organized division of labor, man is easily degraded to the level of mere embodied function.

By not allowing ourselves to think globally, we become mere executors, alienated from the very activity that gives us food.

33. What we think determines what we are and what we do, and, reciprocally, what we do and what we are determines what we think.

Philosophical phrase of the great Aldous Huxley.

34. What the rite is for public worship, spiritual exercises are for particular devotion.

Good reflection of anthropological cut.

35. Stupidity is certainly a product of the will.

Who does not learn is because they do not want to.

36. The will can be strengthened by exercise and confirmed by perseverance.

It is not necessary to let it come by itself: the will must be pursued and trained.

37. The optimal population (...) is the one that resembles icebergs: eight ninths below the waterline, and one ninth part above.

Phrase taken from "A happy world", his most famous book.

38. Liberalism, of course, died of anthrax.

Another extract from his most famous work, about the ideology of freedom to capital.

39. The clothes, as I have discovered now, are much more than resources for the introduction of non-representative forms in naturalist paintings and sculptures.

A reflection on the world of aesthetics.

40. Public spectacles currently represent a role comparable to that represented in the Middle Ages by religion.

One of those Huxley phrases in which he makes a parallel between two different historical moments.

41. What is needed is a new drug that soothes and comforts our suffering species without ultimately causing more harm to the good that makes the short.

Especially dystopian reflection.

42. In a world where education is predominantly verbal, highly educated people find it less than impossible to devote serious attention to what is not words and notions.

A particular vision about the object of interest of the well-educated people.


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