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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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.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.