“To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. To formulate and express the contents of this reduced awareness, man has invented and endlessly elaborated those symbol-systems and implicit philosophies which we call languages.”
More from Aldous Huxley
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
“In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never…”
“Ending is better than mending.”
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history, is the most important of all…”