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The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .

Aldous Huxley

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Aldous Huxley
Age: 69 †
Born: 1894
Born: July 26
Died: 1963
Died: November 22
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Professor
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Godalming
Surrey
Aldous Leonard Huxley
Hell
Anarchy
Waiting
Thin
Lying
Beneath
Crust
Tyranny
Precarious
Surface
Separates
Wait
Systematic
However
Decency
Civilization
Impressive

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Some of the greatest advances in mathematics have been due to the invention of symbols, which it afterwards became necessary to explain from the minus sign proceeded the whole theory of negative quantities.
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It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.
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It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'
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Pageantry is a visionary art which has been used, from time immemorial, as a political instrument.
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Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
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Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.
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It is natural to believe in God when you're alone-- quite alone, in the night, thinking about death.
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The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
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Words are good servants but bad masters.
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One thinks one's something unique and wonderful at the center of the universe, when in fact one's just a slight interruption in the ongoing march of entropy.
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We are so anxious to achieve some particular end that we never pay attention to the psycho-physical means whereby that end is to be gained. So far as we are concerned, any old means is good enough. But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.
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Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes. . . . it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it.
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Liberate yourselves from everything you know and look with complete innocence at this infinitely improbable thing before you.
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A man who has trained himself in goodness come to have certain direct intuitions about character, about the relations between human beings, about his own position in the world - intuitions that are quite different from the intuitions of the average sensual man.
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Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London.
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Everyone belongs to everyone else.
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... the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.
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Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
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Well... ...That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.
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We lie to ourselves in order that we may still have the excuse of ignorance, the alibi of stupidity and incomprehension, possessing which we can continue with a good conscience to commit and tolerate the most monstrous crimes.
Aldous Huxley