There are confessable agonies, sufferings of which one can positively be proud. Of bereavement, of parting, of the sense of sin and the fear of death the poets have eloquently spoken. They command the world's sympathy. But there are also discreditable anguishes, no less excruciating than the others, but of which the sufferer dare not, cannot speak. The anguish of thwarted desire, for example.
Aldous HuxleyThe people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.
Aldous HuxleyImpulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly down its appointed channels into a calm well being.
Aldous HuxleyI know very dimly when I start what's going to happen. I just have a very general idea, and then the thing develops as I write.
Aldous HuxleyProcrustes in modern dress, the nuclear scientist will prepare the bed on which mankind must lie; and if mankind doesnโt fitโwell, that will be just too bad for mankind. There will have to be some stretching and a bit of amputationโthe same sort of stretching and amputations as have been going on ever since applied science really got going into its stride, only this time they will be a good deal more drastic than in the past. These far from painless operations will be directed by highly centralized totalitarian governments.
Aldous Huxley