To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
Aldous HuxleyRead
But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a desire for authentic experiences over superficial comfort, embracing both the joys and challenges of life.
Aldous Huxley's quote reflects a deep longing for a meaningful existence, prioritizing profound experiences such as spirituality, creativity, and the acceptance of life's inherent risks. He contrasts the allure of comfort with the pursuit of authentic joys and struggles, suggesting that true fulfillment lies in embracing complexity rather than seeking mere ease. By acknowledging both goodness and sin, Huxley emphasizes the importance of a balanced, vivid life that includes both the light and dark aspects of human experience.
Themes
AuthenticityExperienceFreedomSpiritualityPoetry
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a motivational speech about the importance of embracing life's challenges.
More from Aldous Huxley
All quotes βFacts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
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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.
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On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.
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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.
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The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.
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Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.
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What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions β they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force.
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I sat at the foot of a huge tree, a statue of the night, and tried to make an inventory of all I had seen, heard, smelled, and felt: dizziness, horror, stupor, astonishment, joy, enthusiasm, nausea, inescapable attraction. What had attracted me? It was difficult to say: Human kind cannot bear much reality.
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Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.
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Tomorrow you may bring about the destruction of your world. Tomorrow you may sing in Paradise above the smoking ruins of your world-cities. But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you - MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.
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