To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Aldous HuxleyRead
... one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.
Interpretation
Reading serves as a distraction from our own thoughts.
In this quote, Aldous Huxley suggests that reading can often act as a form of escapism, allowing individuals to avoid confronting their own thoughts and feelings. This reflects on the nature of literature as both a tool for gaining knowledge and a way to distract oneself from personal introspection.
In practice
During a book club discussion about literature's role in our lives.
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
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.
On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
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.
The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.
Purity is when there is no anxiety, no worry, no thinking.
Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
I never said I was an angel. Nor am I innocent or holy like the Virgin Mary. What I am is natural and serious and as sensitive as an open nerve on an ice cube.
Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.
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