To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.
Use itGS4 on empathy and self-awareness; see yourself as others do, and others as they see themselves.
Quotes / Thinkers / Aldous Huxley
Thinker · 12 quotes
Aldous Huxley quotes for UPSC
12 sourced quotes by Aldous Huxley on religion, tolerance & secularism, compassion & empathy, governance & administration, education & knowledge, peace, non-violence & conflict, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
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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 Huxley"Variations on a Philosopher", § 2
Use itEssay on institutions; organisations we build for convenience can become monsters.
Experience teaches only the teachable.
— Aldous Huxley"Tragedy and the Whole Truth"
Use itLife: experience helps only those open to learning.
History teaches us that war is not inevitable. Once again, it is for us to choose whether we use war or some other method of settling the ordinary and unavoidable conflicts between groups of men.
— Aldous HuxleyWhat Are You Going To Do About It? The case for constructive peace (1936)
Use itEssay on conflict resolution; war is a choice, not inevitable.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
— Aldous Huxley"Note on Dogma"
Use itEssay on denial, e.g. climate change; facts persist when ignored.
Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.
— Aldous Huxley"The Substitutes for Religion, The Religion of Sex"
Use itEssay on fanaticism; fanaticism hides inner doubt.
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice, and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.
— Aldous HuxleyTomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1952)
Use itEssay on fanaticism; dogma and zeal justify malice and folly.
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
— Aldous Huxley"Words and Behaviour", The Olive Tree (1936)
Use itEssay on propaganda and hate speech; dehumanising others enables violence.
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.
— Aldous Huxley"A Case of Voluntary Ignorance" in Collected Essays (1959)
Use itGS1/Essay: humanity's failure to learn history's lessons.
In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.
— Aldous HuxleyThe Doors of Perception (1954)
Use itEssay on screen culture; passive entertainment weakens participatory art.
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
— Aldous Huxley"Religion and Time" in C. Isherwood (ed.) Vedanta for the Western World (1945)
Use itEssay on happiness; it's a by-product of meaningful activity, not direct pursuit.
There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
— Aldous HuxleyTime Must Have a Stop (1944)
Use itLife/GS4: change begins with self-improvement.