Quotes from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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....”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“A funny little literary article in the hand is worth at least three Critiques of Pure Reason in the bush.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“Power and wealth increase in direct proportion to a man's distance from the material objects from which wealth and power are ultimately derived.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“أنا رئيس شركة بترول هنا. لديّ ألفا محطة بنزين في كاليفورنيا وحدها،وكل العاملين بها خريجو جامعات!”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“The frightfulness of the world had reached a point at which it had become for him merely boring.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

“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.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

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Popular quotes

“At teenage parties he was always wandering into the garden, sitting on a bench in the dark . . . staring up at the constellations and pondering all those big questions about the existence of God and the nature of evil and the mystery of death, questions which seemed more important than anything else in the would until a few years passed and some real questions had been dumped into your lap, like how to earn a living, and why people fell in and out of love, and how long you could carry on smoking and then give up without getting lung cancer.”
― Mark Haddon, quote from A Spot of Bother

“Lord. Do not doubt His power.” Only the starets was allowed to address her with such informality. She was the Matushka, Little Mother; her husband, Nicholas II, the Batiushka, Little Father. It was how the peasantry viewed them—as stern parents. Everyone around her said Rasputin was a mere peasant himself. Perhaps so. But he alone could relieve Alexie’s suffering. This peasant from Siberia with his tangled beard, stinking body, and long greasy hair was heaven’s emissary. “God has refused to listen to my prayers, Father. He”
― Steve Berry, quote from The Romanov Prophecy

“My last penny! I think I'll squander it on myself. I never feel badly about spending money my dad has earned honestly! I can't decide whether I should buy a balloon or a gumball. A gumball would taste mighty good, but a balloon would be a lot more fun... I'll take a balloon! Sooner or later in life a person has to learn to make decisions! (Sees someone with a different color balloon) Gee, I wish I'd bought a RED balloon.”
― Charles M. Schulz, quote from The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 1: 1950-1952

“What I tried to make clear in Good Calories, Bad Calories was that nutrition and obesity research lost its way after the Second World War with the evaporation of the European community of scientists and physicians that did pioneering work in those disciplines. It has since resisted all attempts to correct it. As a result, the individuals involved in this research have not only wasted decades of time, and effort, and money but have done incalculable damage along the way. Their beliefs have remained imperious to an ever-growing body of evidence that refutes them while being embraced by public-health authorities and translated into precisely the wrong advice about what to eat and, more important, what not to eat if we want to maintain a healthy weight and live a long and healthy life.”
― quote from Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

“Over middle of mantel, engraving—Washington Crossing the Delaware; on the wall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning crewels by one of the young ladies—work of art which would have made Washington hesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen what advantage was going to be taken of it.”
― Mark Twain, quote from Life on the Mississippi

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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