Complete Essays, Vol. I Quotes

“For 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 Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. I: 1920-1925

“I would rather,' he said, 'give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel.' (And here let me pause to make Mr. Douglas a sporting offer. I will provide a healthy boy, a phial of prussic acid, and a copy of The Well of Loneliness, and if he keeps his word and gives the boy the prussic acid I undertake to pay all expenses of his defense at the ensuing murder trial and to erect a monument to his memory after he has been hanged.)”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. I: 1920-1925

“One of the causes, by the way, of the apparent lack, at the present time, of great men lies in the poverty of the contemporary male coiffure. Rich in whiskers, beards, and leonine manes, the great Victorians never failed to look the part, nowadays it is impossible to know a great man when you see one.”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. I: 1920-1925

“From its summit the beams of half a dozen searchlights waved to heaven. They seemed the antennae of some vast animal, feeling and probing in the void-for what? For Truth, perhaps? Truth is not wanted in the City of Dreadful Joy. For
Happiness? It is possessed. For God? But God had already been found; he was inside the shining Temple; he was the Temple, the brand new, million-dollar Temple ...
What could those luminous antennae be probing for? Why, for nothing, of course, for nothing! If they waved so insistently, that was just for fun. Waving for waving's sake. Movement is a joy, and this is the Great Joy City of the West.”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. I: 1920-1925