Aldous Huxley

Man has an almost infinite capacity for taking things and people for granted and thereby missing out on the pleasure of being grateful that things aren't worse and of praising and thereby lifting the spirits of others.

Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London.

But the quiet grows and grows. Beautifully and unbearably.

A type of revolutionary novelty may be extremely beautiful in itself; but, for the creatures of habit that we are, its very novelty tends to make it illegible, at any rate to begin with.

The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything

We tend to think and feel in terms of the art we like; and if the art we like is bad then our thinking and feeling will be bad. And if the thinking and feeling of most of the individuals composing a society is bad, is not that society in danger?

The sum of evil, Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.

Blood of the world, time staunchless flows; The wound is mortal and is mine.

At any given moment, life is completely senseless. But viewed over a period, it seems to reveal itself as an organism existing in time, having a purpose, trending in a certain direction.

The lunatic fringe is more like a Spanish shawl, where the fringe makes up the entire garment.

Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons - that's philosophy.

In real life there is no such person as the average man.

Man must learn to simplify, but not to the point of falsification.

We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.

The ductless glands secrete among other things our moods, our aspirations, our philosophy of life.

The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray.

I dread the inevitable acceleration of American world domination which will be the result of it all...Europe will no longer be Europe.

All our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook.

A gramme is better than a damn.

The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.

We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge