Aldous Huxley Quotes

The avant-garde in every field consists of the lonely, the friendless, the uninvited. All progress is the product of the unpopular.

Originals are nonconformists, people who not only have new ideas but take action to champion them. They are people who stand out and speak up. Originals drive creativity and change in the world. They're the people you want to bet on.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

Virtually every advancement made by our species since civilization first peeked out of its nest of stone has been initiated by lone individuals, mavericks who more often than not were ignored, mocked, or viciously persecuted by society and its institutions.

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

I'm looking for people who are at the cutting edge of what they do, who think out-of-the-box. Even if their work is something common today, it might have been absolutely new when they started out, so we'd like to hear of their beginnings.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed.

The man with a new idea is a crank until his idea succeeds.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It's made up of pioneers, the beginners. That's where the action is.

There are always two kinds of people in the world - those who pioneer and those who plod. The plodders always attack the pioneers. They say that the pioneers have gobbled up all the opportunity, when, as a plain matter of fact, the plodders would have nowhere to plod had not the pioneers first cleared the way.

Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad.

Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.

The weird set an example for the rest of us. They raise the bar. They show us through their actions that in fact we're wired to do the new, not to comply with someone a thousand miles away.

Anything new, anything worth doing, can't be recognized.

All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today.

Men of great genius and large heart sow the seeds of a new degree of progress in the world, but they bear fruit only after many years.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

So many new ideas are at first strange and horrible though ultimately valuable that a very heavy responsibility rests upon those who would prevent their dissemination.

There's a fine line between eccentrics and geniuses. If you're a little ahead of your time, you're an eccentric, and if you're too late, you're a failure, but if you hit it right on the head, you're a genius.

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.

To create is to resist; to resist is to create.

The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.

The more original something is, the more of a threat it seems until the people catch up with it. That happened with Thelonious Monk. It happened with anybody who is really original.