“Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful.”

—  Aldous Huxley

Do What You Will (1929)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespea…" by Aldous Huxley?
Aldous Huxley photo
Aldous Huxley290
English writer 1894–1963

Related quotes

“When a person understands this setting into single- mindedness well, his affairs will pann out. Loyalty is also contained within this single- mindedness.”

Rati Tsiteladze (1987) Georgian Filmmaker

As Quoted in The Gerorgian Times in September 8, 2008 http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=12354.eng

David Hume photo

“Love in animals, has not for its only object animals of the same species, but extends itself farther, and comprehends almost every sensible and thinking being. A dog naturally loves a man above his own species, and very commonly meets with a return of affection.”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

Part 2, Section 12
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 2: Of the passions

Christopher Hitchens photo

“The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Samuel Johnson photo

“A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 14, 1772, p. 201
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

Margaret Mead photo

“Female animals defending their young are notoriously ferocious and lack the playful delight in combat which characterizes the mock combats of males of the same species. There seems very little ground for claiming that the mother of young children is more peaceful, more responsible, and more thoughtful for the welfare of the human race than is her husband or brother.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Introduction
1940s, Male and Female (1949)

Jacques Derrida photo

“There is no Animal in the general singular, separated from man by a single, indivisible limit. We have to envisage the existence of “living creatures,” whose plurality cannot be assembled within the single figure of an animality that is simply opposed to humanity. … The confusion of all nonhuman living creatures within the general and common category of the animal is not simply a sin against rigorous thinking, vigilance, lucidity, or empirical authority, it is also a crime. Not a crime against animality, precisely, but a crime of the first order against the animals, against animals.”

Jacques Derrida book The Animal That Therefore I Am

The Animal That Therefore I Am (1997)

“I wonder whether there is such a thing as a sense of individuality. Is it all a facade, covering a deep need to belong? Are we simply pack animals desperately trying to pretend we are not?”

Rabih Alameddine (1959) Lebanese-American painter and writer.

Source: I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

Ernest Hemingway photo

“it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“In general, most animals are exclusively breast-fed until they have tripled their birth weight, which in human infants occurs around the age of one year. In no mammalian species, except for the human (and the domestic cat), is milk consumption continued after the weaning period. Calves thrive on cow milk. Cow milk is for calves.”

Frank Oski (1932–1996) American pediatrician

Source: Don't Drink Your Milk! (1983), p. 4

J. Howard Moore photo

“The philosophies of this world have all been framed by, and from the standpoint of, a single species, and they are still managed and maintained in the interests of this species.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Thesis of the New Ethics, p. 16

Related topics