Aldous Huxley

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”

“De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.”

“Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.”

“Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.”

“Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.”

“You should hurry up and acquire the cigar habit. It's one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.”

“What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.”

“So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.”

“That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.”

“Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.”

“Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.”

“Science has explained nothing the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.”

“Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hallmark of true science.”

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

“Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.”

“An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.”

“Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.”

“A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.”

“One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”