The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.
- Topic: Learning, Society
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Aldous Huxley
Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.
If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
If you want a new idea, read an old book.
I've learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind.
Any fool can know. The point is to understand.
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.
History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
Films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.
Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.
It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to allow his vision wherever it takes him.
