ALDOUS HUXLEY : Beyond a Clever Young Man
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My proposal deals with the compilation of an intratexual glossary or an intratextual dictionary to read Huxley´s  literary works (or other author/s), because, apart from helping oneself, it will be very useful for future readers. If we had these tools we would ...

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Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. . . . It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.
Ends and Means, ch. 12 (1937).

Advertising

I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities. I mean the advertisement. . . . It is far easier to write ten passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.
On the Margin, "Advertisement" (1923).

Art

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.
Ends and Means, ch. 12 (1937).

Artists

There are so many intellectual and moral angels battling for rationalism, good citizenship, and pure spirituality; so many and such eminent ones, so very vocal and authoritative! The poor devil in man needs all the support and advocacy he can get. The artist is his natural champion. When an artist deserts to the side of the angels, it is the most odious of treasons.
Do What You Will, "Wordsworth in the Tropics" (1929).

Where beauty is worshipped for beauty's sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty.
Proper Studies, "The Substitutes for Religion" (1927).

Beauty for some provides escape,
Who gain a happiness in eyeing
The gorgeous buttocks of the ape
Or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.
Ninth Philosopher's Song.

Banquets

Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts.
Do What You Will, "Holy Face" (1929).

Books

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, ch. 13 (1928).

A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.
Beyond the Mexique Bay, "Oaxaca" (1934).

Consistency

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.
Do What You Will, "Wordsworth in the Tropics" (1929).

Church

But a priest's life is not supposed to be well-rounded; it is supposed to be one-pointed-a compass, not a weathercock.
The Devils of Loudun, ch. 1 (1952).

Cruelty

The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love-almost as violent and much more mischievous.
Beyond the Mexique Bay, "Chichicastenango" (1934).

Now, a corpse, poor thing, is an untouchable and the process of decay is, of all pieces of bad manners, the vulgarest imaginable. For a corpse is, by definition, a person absolutely devoid of savoir vivre.
"Vulgarity in Literature" (1930; repr. in Music at Night and Other Essays, 1949).

Death and Dying

Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?
Bruno Rontini, in Time Must Have a Stop, ch. 26 (1944). But in his 1936 novel Eyeless in Gaza, ch. 31, Huxley wrote, "Death . . . the only thing we haven't succeeded in completely vulgarizing."

Desire

There are confessable agonies, sufferings of which one can positively be proud. Of bereavement, of parting, of the sense of sin and the fear of death the poets have eloquently spoken. They command the world's sympathy. But there are also discreditable anguishes, no less excruciating than the others, but of which the sufferer dare not, cannot speak. The anguish of thwarted desire, for example.
Point Counter Point, ch. 13 (1928).

D. H. Lawrence

For Lawrence, existence was one continuous convalescence; it was as though he were newly reborn from a mortal illness every day of his life. What these convalescent eyes saw, his most casual speech would reveal.
The Olive Tree, "D. H. Lawrence" (1936)

Drugs

If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution-then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise.
Music at Night and Other Essays, "Wanted, a New Pleasure" (1949). Huxley's earlier writings revealed a different attitude: "I prefer being sober to even the rosiest and most agreeable intoxications," he wrote in his Introduction to Texts and Pretexts (1932). "The peyotl-trances of Swinburne, for example, have always left me perfectly compos mentis; I do not catch the infection."

Which is better: to have Fun with Fungi or to have Idiocy with Ideology, to have Wars because of Words, to have Tomorrow's Misdeeds out of Yesterday's Miscreeds?
"Culture and the Individual," in Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (1931-1963) (ed. by Horowitz and Palmer, 1977).

That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.
Proper Studies, "The Idea of Equality" (1927).

Europe

Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has recreated Europe in his own image.
Do What You Will, "Wordsworth in the Tropics" (1929).

Experts

Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hall-mark of true science.
Ends and Means, ch. 14, "Beliefs" (1937).

Facts are ventriloquists' dummies. Sitting on a wise man's knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.
Bruno Rontini's notes, in Time Must Have a Stop, ch. 30 (1944).

Fanatics

Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.
Proper Studies, "The Substitutes for Religion," "The Religion of Sex" (1927).

Fame

I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
Miss Thriplow, in Those Barren Leaves, pt. 1, ch. 1 (1925).

Fathers and Sons

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
"Vulgarity in Literature" (1930; repr. in Music at Night and Other Essays, 1949).

Fiction

It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.
Letter, 10 July 1962. Quoted in: Aldous Huxley: the Critical Heritage (ed. by Donald Watt, 1975). Huxley believed this to be the explanation for why his novel Island-published that year and greatly criticized-was "so inadequate."

Free Will

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.
Do What You Will, "Pascal," sct. 23 (1929).

Forgiveness

The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful-because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact.
Bruno Rontini's notes, in Time Must Have a Stop, ch. 30 (1944).

Good is a product of the ethical and spiritual artistry of individuals; it cannot be mass-produced.
Grey Eminence, ch. 10 (1941).

I can sympathise with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.
Limbo, "Cynthia" (1920).

Hedonism

Oh, how desperately bored, in spite of their grim determination to have a Good Time, the majority of pleasure-seekers really are!
Do What You Will, "Holy Face" (1929).

Heroes

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.
 "Vulgarity in Literature" (1930; repr. in Music at Night and Other Essays, 1949).

Hero-worship

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable.
Ends and Means, ch. 8 (1937)

Human Fellowship

The brotherhood of men doen not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same.
Proper Studies, "The Idea of Equality: Equality and Christianity" (1927).

Hygiene

Henri IV's feet and armpits enjoyed an international reputation.
The Devils of Loudun, ch. 10 (1952). Huxley was referring to the stories that circulated concerning the "physiological accidents" of the French royal court. "It was precisely because great men tried to seem more than human," he wrote, "that the rest of the world welcomed any reminder that, in part at least, they were still merely animal."

Man is an intelligence, not served by, but in servitude to his organs.
Themes and Variations, "Variations on a Philosopher" (1950).

Intellect and Intellectuals

Science and art are only too often a superior kind of dope, possessing this advantage over booze and morphia: that they can be indulged in with a good conscience and with the conviction that, in the process of indulging, one is leading the "higher life."
Ends and Means, ch. 14 (1937).

Thought is barred in this City of Dreadful Joy and conversation is unknown.
Jesting Pilate, pt. 4 (1926).

Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.
Do What You Will, "Pascal" sct. 23, "Summary of the Life-Worshipper's Creed" (1929).

Murder

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.
Maurice Spandrell, in Point Counter Point, ch. 12 (1928).

Mystics and Mysticism

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.
Grey Eminence, ch. 9 (1941).

A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.
 "Vulgarity in Literature" (1930; repr. in Music at Night and Other Essays, 1949).

Nations

The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.
Grey Eminence, ch. 10 (1941).

If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay-in solid cash-the tribute which philistinism owes to culture, the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.
Jesting Pilate, pt. 1 (1926).

Poets

The poet's place, it seems to me, is with the Mr. Hydes of human nature.
Do What You Will, "Wordsworth in the Tropics" (1929)

Politicians

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
Quoted in: New York Herald Tribune (25 Nov. 1963).

Politics

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behaviour perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.
"On The Natural Inequality Of Men" (1890; published in Collected Essays, vol. 1, 1893).

Proverbs and Maxims

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.
Jesting Pilate, pt. 4 (1926).

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.
Ends and Means, ch. 14 (1937).

Science

Science has "explained" nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.
Along the Road, pt. 2, "Views of Holland" (1925).

Science and Society

We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends.
Ends and Means, ch. 14 (1937).

Self-confidence

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.
Proper Studies, "A Note on Dogma: Varieties of Human Type" (1927).

Self-improvement

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Carlo Malpighi (quoting Bruno Rontini), in Time Must Have a Stop, ch. 7 (1944).

Silence

Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unhewn marble of great sculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.
Walter Bidlake, in Point Counter Point, ch. 1 (1928).

Snobbery

There are few who would not rather be taken in adultery than in provincialism.
Mr. Boldero, in Antic Hay, ch. 10 (1923).

Speed

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.
Music at Night and Other Essays, "Wanted, a New Pleasure" (1949).

Suburbia

All urbanization, pushed beyond a certain point, automatically becomes suburbanization. . . . Every great city is just a collection of suburbs.Its inhabitants . . .do not live in their city; they merely inhabit it.
Beyond the Mexique Bay, "Oaxaca" (1934).

Most of one's life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.
Mr. Topes, in Mortal Coils, "Green Tunnels" (1922).

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.
Do What You Will, "Wordsworth in the Tropics" (1929).

Travel

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.
Along the Road, pt. 1, "Why Not Stay at Home?" (1925).

The business of a seer is to see; and if he involves himself in the kind of God-eclipsing activities which make seeing impossible, he betrays the trust which his fellows have tacitly placed in him.
Grey Eminence, ch. 10 (1941).

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.
Ends and Means, ch. 7 (1937).

Work

Industrial man-a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel revolving with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.
Bruno Rontini's notes, in Time Must Have a Stop, ch. 30 (1944).

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Last Updated : 05/06/99