To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Aldous HuxleyRead
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that strict consistency goes against the natural flow of life, as only the dead remain unchanged.
Aldous Huxley indicates that life is inherently variable and unpredictable, and that true consistency is an illusion that only applies to those who are no longer alive. He implies that to be fully alive is to embrace change and contradiction rather than to cling to rigid standards.
Themes
ConsistencyLifeChangeNaturePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on adaptability in life, one might use Huxley’s quote to emphasize the importance of embracing change.
More from Aldous Huxley
All quotes →Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous HuxleyRead
In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country.
Aldous HuxleyRead
On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
Aldous HuxleyRead
No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously importunate wife.
Aldous HuxleyRead
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
Aldous HuxleyRead
Similar quotes
Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.
Joseph CampbellRead
I caution you as I was never cautioned: You will never let go, you will never be satiated. You will be damaged and scarred, you will continue to hunger. Your body will age, you will continue to need. You will want the earth, then more of the earth-- Sublime, indifferent, it is present, it will not respond. It is encompassing, it will not minister. Meaning, it will feed you, it will ravish you. It will not keep you alive.
Louise GluckRead
Let me go to the house of the Father.
Pope John Paul IiRead
Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
William ShakespeareRead
There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.
Samuel ButlerRead
I am afraid, ... that health begins, after seventy, and often long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives, must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to thank for the infirmities of old age.
Lyndon B. JohnsonRead