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date: 25 September 2023

Aldous Huxley 1894–1963
English novelist 

  1. Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.
    Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934)
  2. The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. ‘Great is the truth’, but still greater…is silence about truth.
    Brave New World (1946)
  3. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.
    Do What You Will (1929) ‘Wordsworth in the Tropics’
  4. The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.
    Ends and Means (1937)
  5. So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.
    Ends and Means (1937) ch. 8
  6. Revolution's delightful in the preliminary stages. So long as it's a question of getting rid of people at the top.
    Eyeless in Gaza (1936)
  7. Chastity—the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.
    Eyeless in Gaza (1936) ch. 27
  8. It is far easier to write ten passably effective sonnets, good enough to take in the not too enquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.
    On the Margin (1923) ‘Advertisement’
  9. Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
    Point Counter Point (1928)
  10. Parodies and caricatures are the most penetrating of criticisms.
    Point Counter Point (1928)
  11. A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
    Point Counter Point (1928)
  12. Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
    Proper Studies (1927)
  13. Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.
    Proper Studies (1927) ‘Note on Dogma’
  14. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
    Texts and Pretexts (1932)
  15. Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
    Themes and Variations (1950) ‘Variations on a Philosopher’
  16. There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
    Time Must Have a Stop (1944)
  17. A million million spermatozoa,
    All of them alive:
    Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah
    Dare hope to survive.
     
    And among that billion minus one
    Might have chanced to be
    Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donne—
    But the One was Me.
     
    ‘Fifth Philosopher's Song’ (1920)
  18. Even if I could be Shakespeare, I think I should still choose to be Faraday.
    in 1925, attributed; Walter M. Elsasser Memoirs of a Physicist in the Atomic Age (1978)
  19. To his dog, every man is Napoleon: hence the constant popularity of dogs.
    attributed; Evan Esar The Treasury of Humorous Quotations (1951)