One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.
Aldous HuxleyWe cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Aldous HuxleyIf humans were in fact the members of a truly social species, and if their individual differences were trifling and could be completely ironed out by appropriate conditioning, then, obviously, there would be no need for liberty and the State would be justified in persecuting the heretics who demanded it.
Aldous HuxleyIf you want to be a psychological novelist and write about human beings, the best thing you can do is keep a pair of cats.
Aldous HuxleyIn a few years, no doubt, marriage licences will be sold like dog licences, good for 12 months.
Aldous HuxleyVisionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and 'going to heaven' is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individual experience.
Aldous Huxley