The Wisdom Letter #298

5 quotes from Aldous Huxley, Leo Tolstoy, and more.

✹ For today’s edition of Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated five bite-sized quotes from brilliant thinkers such as Aldous Huxley and Leo Tolstoy, each paired with a philosophical question designed to provoke deep reflection.

Quote № 01:

“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), “The Olive Tree”

~ Follow-up Question:

How does the deliberate dehumanization of others through ideological manipulation challenge our collective sense of moral responsibility, and what psychological mechanisms enable individuals or societies to accept, or even participate in, systemic cruelty once empathy has been suppressed?

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Quote № 02:

“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), “Anna Karenina”

~ Follow-up Question:

Can the uniqueness of familial unhappiness be seen as a mirror for the hidden, unresolved traumas that shape personal identity, and what does this imply about the ways in which suffering is not only experienced but also transmitted across generations?

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Quote № 03:

“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.”

— Zadie Smith (1975), “On Beauty”

~ Follow-up Question:

Can the constraints that love imposes—such as vulnerability, sacrifice, or loss of control—be reconciled with the modern ideal of individual freedom, or does true love inherently conflict with the pursuit of personal independence and self-determination?

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Quote № 04:

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”

— Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), “All Said and Done”

~ Follow-up Question:

Is the pursuit of truth inherently a lonely or heroic endeavor, and how does the tension between individual awakening and collective conformity shape the way we measure fulfillment, purpose, and integrity in a world resistant to change?

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Quote № 05:

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”

— J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), “The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien”

~ Follow-up Question:

How does the idea that those most eager to lead are the least suited to do so confront our common political assumptions, and what does this reveal about the dangerous allure of power and the ethical imperative to resist it?

✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.

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