Quote for the day – September 5

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Aldous Huxley, freedom

 

“It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free – to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private interest within the nation, wants him to think, feel and act… The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free”.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

[Read about Aldous Huxley on the orgrad website]

 

 

 

 

 

Quote for the day – August 25

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Aldous Huxley, perennialism, The Perennial Philosophy

“Technological idolatry is the religion whose doctrines are promulgated, explicitly or by implication, in the advertisement pages of our newspapers and magazines – the source, we may add parenthetically, from which millions of men, women and children in the capitalist countries derive their working philosophy of life… So whole-hearted is the modern faith in technological idols that (despite all the lessons of mechanized warfare) it is impossible to discover in the popular thinking of our time any trace of the ancient and profoundly realistic doctrine of hubris and inevitable nemesis. There is a very general belief that, where gadgets are concerned, we can get something for nothing – can enjoy all the advantages of an elaborate, top-heavy and constantly advancing technology without having to pay for them by any compensating disadvantages”.

Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

[Read about Aldous Huxley on the orgrad website]

Quote for the day – August 7

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Aldous Huxley, totalitarianism

 

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be the one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and school teachers”.

Aldous Huxley, 1946 Foreword, Brave New World

[Read about Aldoux Huxley on the orgrad website]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote for the day – May 23

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Aldous Huxley, industrial society, taoism

“The industrial worker at his fool-proof and grace-proof machine does his job in a man-made universe of punctual automata – a universe that lies entirely beyond the pale of Tao on any level, brutal, human or spiritual”.

Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

[Read about Aldous Huxley on the orgrad website]

Quote for the day – April 4

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Aldous Huxley, freedom, humanity

“Some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable”.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

[Read more about Aldous Huxley on the orgrad website]

 

 

 

 

 

Quote for the day – February 23

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Aldous Huxley

“The condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system of mass-production is universal craving. Advertising is the organized effort to extend and intensify craving…”

Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

[Read about Aldous Huxley on the orgrad website]