Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxleywas an English writer, novelist, philosopher, and prominent member of the Huxley family. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a first in English literature...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 July 1894
sacrifice reflection men
Modern man's besetting temptation is to sacrifice his direct perceptions and spontaneous feelings to his reasoned reflections; to prefer in all circumstances the verdict of his intellect to that of his immediate intuitions.
sacrifice roots ties
The place is good. How good, one must have circumnavigated the globe to discover. Why not stay? Take root? But roots are chains. I have a terror of losing my freedom. Free, without ties, unpossessed by any possessions, free to do as one will, to go at a moment's notice wherever the fancy may suggest--it is good. But so is this place. Might it not be better? To gain freedom one sacrifices something [...] and all that these things and people signify. One sacrifices something--for a greater gain in knowledge, in understanding, in intensified living? I sometimes wonder.
running sacrifice idols
Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.
sacrifice effort world
The amelioration of the world cannot be achieved by sacrifices in moments of crisis; it depends on the efforts made and constantly repeated during the humdrum, uninspiring periods, which separate one crisis from another, and of which normal lives mainly consist.
christian mistake sacrifice
Most vices demand considerable self-sacrifices. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a vicious life is a life of uninterrupted pleasure. It is a life almost as wearisome and painful -- if strenuously led -- as Christian's in The Pilgrim's Progress.
travel sacrifice comfort
For the born traveller, travelling is a besetting vice. Like other vices, it is imperious, demanding its victim's time, money, energy and the sacrifice of comfort.
god sacrifice self
There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.
degrees drink equal hardened hundred indulge love nirvana parts proof pure spirit-and-spirituality
Pure Spirit, one hundred degrees proof -- that's a drink that only the most hardened contemplation-guzzlers indulge in. Bodhisattvas dilute their Nirvana with equal parts of love and work.
change changing found sure
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
english-novelist knows life multiply power ways
Every person who knows how to read has it in their power to magnify themselves, to multiply the ways in which they exist, to make life full, significant, and interesting.
absolute beings capacity english-novelist human infinite taking
Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
history lessons men
Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.
doubt english-novelist man
A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.
certain corner english-novelist
There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.