Aldous Huxley · 368 pages
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“But then every man is ludicrous if you look at him from outside, without taking into account what’s going on in his heart and mind.”
“Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give Pleasure to our Lovers or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power....”
“A funny little literary article in the hand is worth at least three Critiques of Pure Reason in the bush.”
“If you're always scared of dying," Obispo had said, "you'll surely die. Fear's a poison; and not such a slow poison either.”
“This day fifty years ago I was born. From solitude in the Womb, we emerge into solitude among our Fellows, and return again to solitude within the Grave. We pass our lives in the attempt to mitigate that solitude. But propinquity is never fusion. We exchange Words, but exchange them from prison to prison, and without hope that they will signify to others what they mean to ourselves. We marry and there are two solitudes in the house instead of one; we beget children, and there are many solitudes. We reiterate the act of love; but again propinquity is never fusion. The most intimate contact is only of Surfaces, and we couple, as I have seen the condemned Prisoners at Newgate coupling with their Trulls, between the bars of our cages. Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give pleasure to our lover or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power; and this we are for ever trying to do, despite the fact that by doing it we cause ourselves to feel more solitary than ever. The reality of Solitude is the same in all men, there being no mitigation of it, except in Forgetfulness, Stupidity or Illusion; but a man's sense of Solitude is proportionate to the sense and fact of his Power. In anz set of circumstances, the more Power we have, the more intensely do we feel our solitude. I have enjoyed much Power in my life.”
“Power and wealth increase in direct proportion to a man's distance from the material objects from which wealth and power are ultimately derived.”
“Cea mai gravă infracțiune a lui fusese să accepte lumea în care trăia ca pe una normală, rațională și corectă. Ca toți ceilalți, permisese publicității să îi multiplice dorințele; învățase să echivaleze fericirea cu posesiunile, iar prosperitatea cu banii cheltuiți la magazin.”
“To most people any radical change is even more odious than cynicism. The only way between the horns of dilemma is to persist at all costs in the ignorance which permits one to go on doing wrong in the comforting belief that yb doing so one is accomplishing one's duty / one's duty to the company, to the shareholders, to the family, the city, the state, the fatherland, the church. For, of course, poor Hansen's case wasn't in any way unique; on a smaller scale, and therefore with less power to do evil, he was acting like all those civil servants and statesmen and prelates who go through life spreading misery and destruction in the name of their ideals and under orders from their categorical imperatives.”
“We float in language like icebergs – four-fifths under the surface and only one-fifth of us projecting into the open air of immediate, non-linguistic experience.”
“أنا رئيس شركة بترول هنا. لديّ ألفا محطة بنزين في كاليفورنيا وحدها،وكل العاملين بها خريجو جامعات!”
“The frightfulness of the world had reached a point at which it had become for him merely boring.”
“nationalism will always produce at least one war each generation. It has done in the past, and I suppose we can rely on it to do the same in the future.”
“I excuse myself and go to the ladies’ room. Washing my hands, I give myself a little you
can do this type pep talk. When I walk out, I see him leaned up against the wall opposite the door.
"Long line for the men's room?" I try to joke, moving past him.
His hand circles my wrist, stopping me. I inhale, frozen in place. My back is to him. I don't
try to pull away. I can't move. I just look down at his hand, staring at his damn freckle.
"Sarah."
"What are you playing at, Will?'
"Playing?" He tugs my arm back so I'm facing him. "I promise you this is no game."
"Alright, what do you want from me? Is that better?" I practically spit.
"Everything." He's moved his hands up to hold my biceps. "I want everything from you."
Everything. That one word still breaks my heart when I think back to that night.
My head snaps back as though he's struck me. Don’t cry, just don’t cry. "I gave you
everything once. Now I have nothing left for you."
I pull myself from his grasp and hurry back to the table.”
“Everything he’d learned said it wasn’t normal to hunger for a human. And yet, with a near brutal intensity, he hungered for this one.”
“so am I. I have stumbled enough. I am forgiven. I am abundant. I am certainly insouciant. I’m not your tar baby. You’re the star, baby. Love the lucky well. MARIA SEMPLE wrote for television shows including Arrested Development, Mad About You, and Ellen. She has escaped from Los Angeles and lives with her family on an island off Seattle. This is her first”
“Nourish your eye and spirit with inspiring things. They will bloom with your tending.”
“The trouble is I'm not very good at trusting my own instincts. I've been wrong before. A lot."
"About what? You worry too much, about everything. You're to hard on yourself."
"I was wrong about Rory -"
"You were twenty-five, twenty-six! Everyone's allowed to be in love with the wrong person at some point. In fact, its a mistake not to be.”
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