“Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts.”
Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 5 (p. 43)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Aldous Huxley290
English writer 1894–1963Related quotes
John Derbyshire (1945) writer
Source: The Wood Has Been Made Into a Boat http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/216568/wood-has-been-made-boat/john-derbyshire, National Review January 23, 2006.
Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian
Source: The End of Utopia (1999), pp. 10-11
John Fowles book The Aristos
The Aristos (1964)
Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher
Man in the Modern Age (1933)
Context: When the titanic apparatus of the mass-order has been consolidated, the individual has to serve it, and must from time to time combine with his fellows in order to renovate it. If he wants to make his livelihood by intellectual activity, he will find it very difficult to do this except by satisfying the needs of the many. He must give currency to something that will please the crowd. They seek satisfaction in the pleasures of the table, eroticism, self-assertion; they find no joy in life if one of these gratifications be curtailed. They also desire some means of self-knowledge. They desire to be led in such as way that they can fancy themselves leaders. Without wishing to be free, they would fain be accounted free. One who would please their taste must produce what is really average and commonplace, though not frankly styled such; must glorify or at least justify something as universally human. Whatever is beyond their understanding is uncongenial to them.
One who would influence the masses must have recourse to the art of advertisement. The clamour of puffery is to-day requisite even for an intellectual movement. The days of quiet and unpretentious activity seem over and done with. You must keep yourself in the public eye, give lectures, make speeches, arouse a sensation. Yet the mass-apparatus lacks true greatness of representation, lacks solemnity. <!-- pp. 43 - 44
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
As quoted in The Anchor Book of Latin Quotations: with English translations (1990) by Norbert Guterman, p. 375
Disputed
“Beliefs do not change facts. Facts, if one is rational, should change beliefs.”
Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter
“I am not at all interested in immortality, only in the taste of tea.”
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
From Lu Tong (also spelled as Lu Tung)
Misattributed