Aldous Huxley Quotes

Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

I've been deeply influenced by Aristotle's idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. 'The control of the appetites by right reason,' is how he defined it.

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of, a virtuous life.

Sensibility appears to me to be neither good nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle, it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.

After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

True education seeks to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men and women with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love.

I don't think goodness is something that you learn. If you're left adrift in the world to learn goodness from it, you would be in trouble.

Our moral faculties must be placed highest, else they can no more flourish than could a plant growing under the shade and drip of trees.

A man who knows all goods and all truths, as many as can be known, but does not shun evils, knows nothing.

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Education is the art of making man ethical.

The amiable is a duty most certainly, but must not be exercised at the expense of any of the virtues. He who seeks to do the amiable always, can only be successful at the frequent expense of his manhood.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

It is not enough merely possess virtue, as if it were an art; it should be practiced.

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.

Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others. It is not obedience to authority, and while it is often consistent with and reinforced by religious belief, it is not piety.

In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.