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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

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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
Good
Continue
Possessing
Ignorance
Monstrous
Crime
Crimes
Lying
Tolerate
Order
Stupidity
Stills
Commit
Still
Excuse
Alibi
May
Conscience
Incomprehension

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Drill and uniforms impose an architecture on the crowd. An army's beautiful. But that's not all it panders to lower instincts than the aesthetic. The spectacle of human beings reduced to automatism satisfies the lust for power. Looking at mechanized slaves, one fancies oneself a master.
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No less than war or statecraft, the history of Economics has its heroic ages.
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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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In the world of ideas everything was clear in life all was obscure, embroiled.
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I believe one would write better if the climate were bad. If there were a lot of wind and storms for example.
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Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right
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The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray.
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[I am not] the captain of my soul I am only its noisiest passenger.
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Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery.
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That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
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I had to depend on Braille for my reading and guide for my walking...I am now wearing no glasses, reading and all without strain...by taking lessons in seeing...optometrists hate the method.
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This really revolutionary revolution is to be achieved, not in the external world, but in the souls and flesh of human beings.
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Oh, how desperately bored, in spite of their grim determination to have a Good Time, the majority of pleasure-seekers really are!
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At this point we find ourselves confronted by a very disquieting question: Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge?
Aldous Huxley
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But then people don't read literature in order to understand they read it because they want to re-live the feelings and sensations which they found exciting in the past. Art can be a lot of things but in actual practice, most of it is merely the mental equivalent of alcohol and cantharides.
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There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.
Aldous Huxley
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The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
Aldous Huxley
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It takes a certain amount of intelligence and imagination to realize the extraordinary queerness and mysteriousness of the world in which we live.
Aldous Huxley
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...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.
Aldous Huxley
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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.
Aldous Huxley