Aldous Huxley Quotes About Democracy

Quotes about: Democracy

• Democracy can hardly be expected to flourish in societies where political and economic power is being progressively concentrated and centralized. But the progress of technology has led and is still leading to just such a concentration and centralization of power.

  Aldous Huxley

  Power, Technology, Political

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

• Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors.

  Aldous Huxley

  Powerful, Ignorance, Knowledge

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

• In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

  Aldous Huxley

  Communication, Men, Two

  Aldous Huxley (2008). “Brave New World Revisited”, p.47, Random House

• Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.

  Aldous Huxley

  Freedom, Brave New World, Views

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

• The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information.

  Aldous Huxley

  Light, Numbers, People

  Aldous Huxley (1961). “Selected Essays”

• A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

  Aldous Huxley

  Country, War, Tyrants

  Aldous Huxley (1937). “Ends and Means: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Ideals and Into the Methods Employed for Their Realization”, p.71, Transaction Publishers

• Assemble a mob of men and women previously conditioned by a daily reading of the newspapers; treat them to amplified band music, bright lights...and in next to no time you can reduce them to a state of almost mindless subhumanity. Never before have so few been in a position to make fools, maniacs, or criminals of so many.

  Aldous Huxley

  Money, Reading, Men

  Aldous Huxley (2010). “The Devils Of Loudun”, p.368, Random House

• Generalized intelligence and mental alertness are the most powerful enemies of dictatorship and at the same time the basic conditions of effective democracy.

  Aldous Huxley

  Powerful, Enemy, Democracy

  Aldous Huxley (1999). “Moksha: Aldous Huxley's Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience”, p.187, Simon and Schuster

• All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time

  Aldous Huxley

  Long, Democracy, Important

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