Aldous Huxley

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.

Such prosperity as we have known it up to the present is the consequence of rapidly spending the planet's irreplaceable capital.

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.

I'm pretty good at inventing phrases - you know, the sort of words that suddenly make you jump, almost as though you'd sat on a pin, they seem so new and exciting even though they're about something hypnopaedically* obvious. But that doesn't seem enough. It's not enough for the phrases to be good; what you make with them ought to be good too. *Training and instruction during sleep.

The investigation of nature is an infinite pasture-ground where all may graze, and where the more bite, the longer the grass grows, the sweeter is its flavor, and the more it nourishes.

Compared with that of Taoists and Far Eastern Buddhists, the Christian attitude toward Nature has been curiously insensitive and often downright domineering and violent. Taking their cue from an unfortunate remark in Genesis, Catholic moralists have regarded animals as mere things which men do right to regard for their own ends. . . .

Modern man no longer regards Nature as being in any sense divine and feels perfectly free to behave toward her as an overweening conqueror and tyrant.

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.