“The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace,
The prurient ape's defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.”

—  Aldous Huxley , book Ape and Essence

Source: Ape and Essence

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much." by Aldous Huxley?
Aldous Huxley photo
Aldous Huxley 290
English writer 1894–1963

Related quotes

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“They that touch pitch will be defiled.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Actually spoken by Dogberry in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (III.3). The KJV Bible (Ecclesiasticus 13:1) has "He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith".
Misattributed

David Levithan photo

“elliptical, adj.
The kiss I like the most is one of the slow ones. It’s as much breath as touch, as much no as yes. You lean in from the side, and I have to turn a little to make it happen.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Bruce Springsteen photo

“Baby, in a world without pity,
Do you think what I'm askin's too much?
I just want to feel you in my arms,
Share a little of that Human Touch.
Feel a little of that Human Touch.
Give me a little of that Human Touch.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Human Touch"
Song lyrics, Human Touch (1992)

Kate Bush photo

“In the warm room
She'll touch you with your Mamma's hand.
You'll long to kiss those red lips,
But when you do
It'll feel like kicking a habit.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)

Richard Dawkins photo

“We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realise that we are apes. Our common ancestor with the chimpanzees and gorillas is much more recent than their common ancestor with the Asian apes — the gibbons and orangutans. There is no natural category that includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans but excludes humans.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

"Gaps in the Mind"
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)
Source: A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love

“Today greets you in the morning with an embrace and a kiss. How will you greet it back?”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 73

William Saroyan photo

“There was a touch of anxiety in the whole human race about its future.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

First Visit to Armenia (1935)

Bertrand Russell photo

“How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

A characteristic saying of Russell, reported by Aldous Huxley in a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell dated 8 October 1917, as quoted in Bibliography of Bertrand Russell (Routledge, 2013)
1910s

Peter Gabriel photo

“So what's one little kiss, one tiny little touch?
Aah, he's wanting it so much.
I swear that this is royal blood, running through my skin.
Oh, can you see the state I'm in?
Kiss it better, kiss it better.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Kiss That Frog
Song lyrics, Us (1992)

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas photo

“Much like the French (or like ourselves, their apes),
Who with strange habit do disguise their shapes;
Who loving novels, full of affectation,
Receive the manners of each other nation.”

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer

First Week, Second Day. Compare: "Report of fashions in proud Italy, Whose manners still our apish nation Limps after in base imitation", William Shakespeare, Richard II, act ii. sc. 1.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)

Related topics