Laura Huxley Quotes

our society can improve only if the next generation is given the chance, through loving and intelligent education, to be better developed than the present one.

Self-questioning is a first step on the path to self-awareness. And this awareness is a precondition for making the most of our lives. It is our protection against unnecessary mental suffering and physical illness, and our aid in coping with these when they cannot be avoided. Being aware is the way toward finding fulfillment in our relationships with others, of bringing all our store of healthy energy to living and working.

This is a part of living, part of the interrelatedness of human beings. We cannot live in a world of people and avoid the storms of their disagreeable and painful emotions any more than we can avoid the weather. But we can avoid this feeling of being the target for them. We can even turn the unpleasant encounters to our own good use.

Let us initiate a change in ourselves, for then, and then only, shall we be able to effect a change in other people. When we change, others change too. And circumstances change in a manner that is almost miraculous. The initial change has to come from inside ourselves.

Although we would not consider ourselves the target of a hurricane or a tidal wave, we often feel we are the victims of meteorological disturbances in the minds of other people. Sometimes it is true; people are trying to hurt us. But most of the time they are merely exploding, and we happen to be nearby-a conveniant substitute for their real target.

Scientific research is the art of asking the right question in the right way.

Our creative potential has many aspects, but undoubtedly the most important one is to make good use of ourselves and what we are here and now, at each successive moment.

Beauty, well, it's one of the greatest, greatest gifts. I feel sorry sometimes because people are so worried and so involved in something that they don't have even five minutes to look at something beautiful. I find beauty almost everywhere.

True pleasure is inextricably linked with feelings of gratitude, generosity, well-being. So inseparable is pleasure from this climate of good feeling that it is hard to know which comes first, the enjoyment or the good feeling. ("Open the Door to Pleasure")

creativity is not the monopoly of the Shakespeares and Einsteins of this world. There is a science of intelligent living, an art of being fully human, in which we all can and ought to be creative. To use our imagination is part of the total art of being. To imagine other people's imagination is part of the art of being with others.

we must want not to be the target. There is a widespread though subterranean feeling that to be made to suffer to be a victim- is somehow an admirable position on earth and a good ticket to a special place in heaven...If you know that you carry this belief in your own mind, ask yourself this question: When do I do the most good for myself and for others: When I am suffering-Or when I am happy?

It is feeling the energy, becoming conscious of it, that permits us to redirect it according to the best of our physical, intellectual, and ethical knowledge.

You alone can change yourself, and when you do, then circumstances and people will both seem and be changed.

It is harmful to reject a human being; it is harmful to be rejected. When we do not respect or love ourselves we commit both offenses. ("Love Yourself as You Love Your Neighbor")

this transformation is really the key now, isn’t it, to our living: to be able to transform. (1968)