Quotes by Leonard Huxley

“Caterpillars were the nearest approach, in real life, to Edgar Allan Poe.””

“To justify homeopathy, he had developed a whole theory of non-material fields”

“I’d rather entrust my daughters to Casanova than my secrets to a novelist. Literary fires are hotter even than sexual ones. And literary oaths are even strawier than the matrimonial or monastic varieties.””

“Dying’s an art, and at our age we ought to be learning it. It helps to have seen someone who really knew how. Helen knew how to die because she knew how to live”

“You forget,” I said, “I’m a writer, and the Muses are the daughters of Memory.” “And God,” he added quickly, “is not their brother. God isn’t the son of Memory; He’s the son of Immediate Experience. You can’t worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it’s hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you’ve got to die to every other moment.””

“You can’t worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature.””

“Don’t think of him.’‘I can’t help it.’‘Take soma, then.’‘I do.’‘Well, go on.’‘But in the intervals I still like him. I shall always like him.””

“Et pourtant, nulle part on n'enseigne aux enfants une méthode systématique pour faire le départ entre le vrai et le faux, une affirmation sensée et une autre qui ne l'est pas. Pourquoi ? Parce que leurs aînés, même dans les pays démocratiques, ne veulent pas qu'ils reçoivent ce genre d'instruction.””

“I think there quite probably is one God, but he manifests himself in different ways to different men. In pre-modern times he manifested himself as the being that's described in these books. Now he manifests himself as an absence; as though he weren't there at all. Call it the fault of civilization. God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. That's why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons – that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to believe in God. It is natural to believe in God when you're alone, but people never are alone now. We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them to have it. There isn't any need for a civilized man to bear anything that's seriously unpleasant. And as for doing things – It would upset the whole social order if men started doing things on their own. Industrial civilization is only possible when there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to very limits imposed by hygiene and economics. Passion and neurasthenia mean instability. Instability means the end of civilization. You can't have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices. Civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society nobody has any oppurtunities for being noble or heroic.””

“That mania for doing things in private. Which meant, in practice, not doing anything at all. For what was there that one could do in private.””

“You can't consume much of you sit still and read books.””

“You can't learn a science unless you know what it's all about.””

“For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently – though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers, but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.””

“Une vérité sans éclat peut être éclipsée par un mensonge passionnant.””