“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.”
Aldous Huxley
Self ImprovementWisdom
Aldous Huxley Quotes
English - Novelist|July 26, 1894 - November 22, 1963
50 FAMOUS QUOTES · NOVELIST
Aldous Huxley Quotes
Read 50 of the best Aldous Huxley quotes on truth, experience, freedom, happiness and human nature from the visionary author of Brave New World.
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
Aldous Huxley
MusicSilence
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Aldous Huxley
TruthFacts
“Experience teaches only the teachable.”
Aldous Huxley
ExperienceLearning
“Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.”
Aldous Huxley
ExperienceAttitude
“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.”
Aldous Huxley
GeniusEnthusiasm
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”
Aldous Huxley
GratitudeHuman Nature
“Every man's memory is his private literature.”
Aldous Huxley
MemoryLiterature
“Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.”
Aldous Huxley
ExperienceWisdom
“Several excuses are always less convincing than one.”
Aldous Huxley
ExcusesWit
“The proper study of mankind is books.”
Aldous Huxley
BooksReading
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”
Aldous Huxley
HistoryLessons
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
Aldous Huxley
TravelPerspective
“There isn't any formula or method. You learn to love by loving, by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.”
Aldous Huxley
LoveAttention
“To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.”
Aldous Huxley
DogsFunny
“There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.”
Aldous Huxley
HappinessWit
“Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.”
Aldous Huxley
ChangeWit
“Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.”
Aldous Huxley
TruthMistakes
“It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than "try to be a little kinder."
Aldous Huxley
KindnessWisdom
“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”
Aldous Huxley
TechnologyProgress
“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
Aldous Huxley
PropagandaHumanity
“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know.”
Aldous Huxley
IgnoranceTruth
“My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.”
Aldous Huxley
FateHumility
“Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.”
Aldous Huxley
ActionExcuses
“Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.”
Aldous Huxley
PoliticsPower
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About Aldous Huxley
English - Novelist | July 26, 1894 - November 22, 1963
Aldous Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963) was an English novelist, essayist and philosopher, born in Godalming, Surrey, into a famous family of scientists and writers. His grandfather was the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and his brother was the biologist Julian Huxley. Despite an eye illness as a teenager that left him nearly blind, he studied at Oxford and became one of the most brilliant writers of his time.
Huxley is best known for *Brave New World* (1932), a chilling vision of a future society controlled by technology and pleasure. His other works include *Crome Yellow*, *Point Counter Point*, *The Doors of Perception* and *Island*. He moved to California in 1937, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times, and wrote widely on science, spirituality and human potential. Here are 50 of the best Aldous Huxley quotes.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about Aldous Huxley and these famous quotes.
Who was Aldous Huxley?
Aldous Huxley was an English novelist, essayist and philosopher, best known for his 1932 novel *Brave New World*. He wrote nearly 50 books on fiction, science, society and spirituality.
What is Brave New World about?
*Brave New World* imagines a future society where people are engineered in laboratories, conditioned from birth and kept content with pleasure and a drug called soma, at the cost of freedom, art and real emotion.
Did Aldous Huxley say "The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do"?
No. This line was written by his grandfather, the scientist Thomas Henry Huxley, in an 1877 address on technical education. It's often credited to Aldous by mistake.
Was the band The Doors named after Huxley's book?
Yes. The rock band The Doors took their name from Huxley's 1954 book *The Doors of Perception*, whose title Huxley borrowed from a line by the poet William Blake.
What is Aldous Huxley's most famous quote?
"Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you" and "There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self" are two of his most quoted lines.
When did Aldous Huxley die?
Huxley died in Los Angeles on November 22, 1963, the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and writer C. S. Lewis passed away.