Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.
aldous Huxleyquotes
1894 - 1963
Born to a prominent intellectual English family in 1894, it seemed Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was destined to become a scientist. Instead, when a serious illness left him nearly blind, he abandoned his scientific dreams to pursue a literary career. Graduating from Balliol College, Oxford in 1916 with a degree in English Literature, Huxley published his first book, a collection of poems, The Burning Wheel.
Huxley hobnobbed with some of the most famous writers of the 20th century at Garsington Manor, a gathering place for intellectuals like Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and D. H. Lawrence. These experiences gave Huxley the substance for his early, satirical novels on contemporary intellectual society (Antic Hay, Those Barren Leaves, Point Counter Point). At the same time, he was writing witty periodicals for Vanity Fair and Vogue.
Known for his far-reaching intelligence in his most famous novels like Brave New World and Island, which considered the positive and negative impacts of science and technology on society, Huxley was a successful screenwriter as well (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, Madam Curie).
When he moved to California in the 1930s, he developed an interest in Eastern mysticism and philosophy, which he believed was an alternative to the emptiness of contemporary society (The Perennial Philosophy).
Always writing, Huxley even documented his experiences with the drug mescaline in The Doors of Perception, and wrote a moving autobiography, This Timeless Moment, about his second wife. His lively mind and elegant style defined him as one of the most profound thinkers of his generation, and the most representative writer of his century.
All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces which it controls very little and understands not at all. When it does anything more – when it tries too hard, for example, when it worries, when it becomes apprehensive about the future – it lowers the effectiveness of those forces and may even cause the devitalized body to fall ill. In my present state, awareness was not referred to as ego; it was, so to speak, on its own.
They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science.
Twenty-two years eight months and four days from that moment, a promising young Alpha – Minus administrator at Mwanza-Mwanza was to die of trypanosomiasis – the first case for over half a century. Sighing, Lenina went on with her work.
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t with a more riotous appetite.
Because it is idiotic. Writing when there’s nothing to say.
There’s nothing like a re-creation of the event. Which is lucky. Think if one could fully remember perfume or kisses! How wearisome the reality of them would be!
So in a certain sense disintegration may have its advantages. But of course it’s dangerous, horribly dangerous. Suppose you couldn’t get back, out of the chaos.
It is finished. Old Mitsima’s words repeated themselves in his mind. Finished, finished…. In silence and from a long way off, but violently, desperately, hopelessly, he had loved Kiakimé. And now it was finished. He was sixteen.
Lenina was left to face the horrors of Malpais unaided. They came crowding in on her thick and fast. The spectacle of two young women giving the breast to their babies made her blush and turn away her face.
