Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Aldous Huxley Quotes
WorkLeisureLegacy What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes - ah, they have all the necessary leisure.
NatureSpiritualityPeaceReverence My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.
RebellionGenerational ConflictDisillusionment Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
AuthorshipIdentityLogicHumor The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
Human IngenuityDesignBeautyOrder Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own image.
Mind-Body ConnectionPhysiologySelf What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
IdolatryPowerOppressionConsequence So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.
HabitTransformationRoutineEnjoymentNecessity Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.
IdealismPowerPoliticsDeception Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
FateCrimeVictimhoodPerpetration It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.
CrueltyHuman NatureViolence The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love - almost as violent and much more mischievous.
CynicismInactionExcusesAdversity Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.
EqualityHuman NatureSkepticism That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.
LeisureCultureCostPrivilege Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.
Good IntentionsHumanityOppressionIrony Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying.
IntelligenceCuriosityAuthenticityClarityVision Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
ReadingKnowledgeSelf-ImprovementEmpowerment Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.
IntellectCuriosityPassionUnique Interests An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex.
ArtUnderstandingThoughtEmotion The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.
LovePleasureJoy Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.
ProverbsExperienceTruthUnderstanding Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.
DesireSpiritualityDisciplineStillness Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.
Official DignityBureaucracyImportanceIrony Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.
DemocracyWarTyranny A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
GratitudeHuman Nature Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
ConsistencyLifeChange Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
ExperienceLearningPassionPrejudice From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.
PropagandaDehumanizationEmpathyHumanity The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
TruthSilencePropagandaInfluence Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.
AvoidanceSelf-ReflectionHuman Condition Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.
HappinessContentmentEndurance You should hurry up and acquire the cigar habit. It's one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.
FanaticismDoubtOvercompensation Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.
EffortSincerityCreation A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Self-DisciplineResponsibilityWillpowerAction The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.