Havelock Ellis Quotes

Powerful Havelock Ellis for Daily Growth

About Havelock Ellis

Havelock Ellis (February 2, 1853 – July 14, 1939) was a renowned British psychologist, social scientist, and pioneering sexologist. Born in Portsmouth, England, he showed an early interest in literature, philosophy, and science, which laid the foundation for his future work. Ellis's education was rather unconventional. He attended Harrow School briefly but left at age 16 to pursue self-directed studies. This allowed him to explore subjects that were not traditionally taught, such as evolutionary theory and anthropology, which would later influence his work significantly. In 1874, Ellis began a lifelong collaboration with the influential psychologist Henry Havelock Ellis (no relation). Together they conducted groundbreaking research in the field of psychology, publishing "The Criminal Court of Victorian England" (1887) and "Studies in Psychical Research" (1894). Ellis's most notable work is his multivolume study on human sexuality, "Studies in the Psychology of Sex," published between 1897 and 1928. This comprehensive work was one of the first scientific examinations of human sexuality, discussing topics that were considered taboo at the time, such as homosexuality and masturbation. Despite facing backlash and censorship due to the controversial nature of his work, Ellis remained steadfast in his beliefs. He advocated for sex education, sexual freedom, and gender equality, making significant contributions to the acceptance and understanding of human sexuality. Ellis's work continues to influence modern psychological thought, particularly in the fields of sexuality and gender studies. His legacy as a pioneering thinker in human sexuality remains indelible.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"Sexual morality differs among civilizations as savory dishes differ among countries."

This quote by Havelock Ellis suggests that just as food preferences vary significantly across different cultures, so too do societal norms and values regarding sexual behavior and morality. It implies that what is considered appropriate or taboo in one society may be quite different in another, reflecting the diverse nature of human societies and their unique cultural values. This understanding can foster empathy and respect for cultural differences while also encouraging dialogue about sexuality and its role in various societies.

"The world is not to be put in order: the world is order -- incarnate disorder."

This quote by Havelock Ellis suggests that the universe, or "world," exhibits a fundamental, inherent chaos that cannot be tamed or made perfect. The world's very essence embodies both order and disorder in an interconnected and unpredictable way. Instead of trying to impose our own vision of order on the world, we should seek to understand, embrace, and navigate this natural state of incarnate disorder. This insight encourages us to adapt and find harmony within the complexities of life rather than striving for a utopian ideal that may never be fully achievable.

"Love is a long obedience in the same direction, and it does not consist of great acts, but of small ones done with generosity."

This quote by Havelock Ellis suggests that love is not defined by extraordinary actions or grand gestures, but rather by consistent, compassionate behavior over time. Love is a commitment to care for another person faithfully, demonstrated through countless small acts of kindness, done willingly and generously. It emphasizes the importance of consistency and devotion in relationships, rather than relying on dramatic moments or fleeting emotions.

"The first duty in life is to be as intelligent as your dentist."

This quote by Havelock Ellis humorously suggests that maintaining good health, particularly oral health, should be a priority for everyone. The "intelligence" of one's dentist implies the understanding and care necessary for proper dental hygiene and overall health. In essence, it encourages us to take care of our health as diligently as we trust our dentists to do so.

"Civilization, as we know it, has been founded upon the sublimation of sexual instincts."

This quote suggests that the development and structure of modern society, or civilization, are largely built upon the channeling and transformation of human sexual desires into socially acceptable behaviors and institutions, such as marriage, family, and cultural norms. The "sublimation" process refers to a psychological phenomenon where unacceptable or inappropriate impulses are redirected toward constructive or socially beneficial outlets. In this context, the sublimation of sexual instincts has been instrumental in shaping civilization by promoting social stability, order, and the establishment of cultural values that guide human behavior.

The mathematician has reached the highest rung on the ladder of human thought.

- Havelock Ellis

Ladder, Human Thought, Rung

Socialism also brings us up against the hard rock of eugenic fact which, if we neglect it, will dash our most beautiful social construction to fragments.

- Havelock Ellis

Fact, Will, Which, Hard Rock

The by-product is sometimes more valuable than the product.

- Havelock Ellis

Product, Sometimes, More, By-Product

Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.

- Havelock Ellis

Life, Dancing, Abstraction, Translation

The family only represents one aspect, however important an aspect, of a human being's functions and activities. A life is beautiful and ideal or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship.

- Havelock Ellis

However, Functions, Our, One Aspect

When love is suppressed hate takes its place.

- Havelock Ellis

Love, Hate, Suppressed, Love Is

The omnipresent process of sex, as it is woven into the whole texture of our man's or woman's body, is the pattern of all the process of our life.

- Havelock Ellis

Woman, Process, Woven, Omnipresent

The average husband enjoys the total effect of his home but is usually unable to contribute any of the details of work and organisation that make it enjoyable.

- Havelock Ellis

Work, Average, Contribute, Organisation

Every artist writes his own autobiography.

- Havelock Ellis

Art, Artist, His, Writes

The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.

- Havelock Ellis

Optimism, Most, Lunatic, Asylum

A sublime faith in human imbecility has seldom led those who cherish it astray.

- Havelock Ellis

Faith, Cherish, Seldom, Astray

At the present day the crude theory of the sexual impulse held on one side, and the ignorant rejection of theory altogether on the other side, are beginning to be seen as both alike unjustified.

- Havelock Ellis

Beginning, Other, Side, Impulse

The relation of the individual person to the species he belongs to is the most intimate of all relations.

- Havelock Ellis

Individual, Most, Species, Relations

The sanitary and mechanical age we are now entering makes up for the mercy it grants to our sense of smell by the ferocity with which it assails our sense of hearing.

- Havelock Ellis

Makes, Grants, Which, Ferocity

It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.

- Havelock Ellis

Could, Obscene, Had, Dared

It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.

- Havelock Ellis

New, Better, Failures, Base

All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a volcano of revolution.

- Havelock Ellis

Time, Civilization, Over, From Time To Time

It is becoming clear that the old platitudes can no longer be maintained, and that if we wish to improve our morals we must first improve our knowledge.

- Havelock Ellis

Old, Clear, Becoming, Maintained

Thinking in its lower grades, is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry.

- Havelock Ellis

Money, Kind, Paper, Forms

The parents have not only to train their children: it is of at least equal importance that they should train themselves.

- Havelock Ellis

Children, Equal, Importance, Train

In philosophy, it is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met with by the way.

- Havelock Ellis

Goal, Matters, Things, Attainment

Birth-control is effecting, and promising to effect, many functions in our social life.

- Havelock Ellis

Social, Functions, Effecting, Social Life

For every fresh stage in our lives we need a fresh education, and there is no stage for which so little educational preparation is made as that which follows the reproductive period.

- Havelock Ellis

Education, Which, Period, Fresh

Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom.

- Havelock Ellis

Men, Door, Longer, Fools

The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.

- Havelock Ellis

Tension, Means, Snaps, Prevalence

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.

- Havelock Ellis

Nature, Hands, Within, Disappeared

The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men.

- Havelock Ellis

Civilization, Task, Slaves, Machines

There is a very intimate connection between hypnotic phenomena and religion.

- Havelock Ellis

Very, Hypnotic, Intimate, Phenomena

The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite.

- Havelock Ellis

Art, Beginning, Dancing, In The End

If men and women are to understand each other, to enter into each other's nature with mutual sympathy, and to become capable of genuine comradeship, the foundation must be laid in youth.

- Havelock Ellis

Nature, Other, Laid, Women Are

The husband - by primitive instinct partly, certainly by ancient tradition - regards himself as the active partner in matters of love and his own pleasure as legitimately the prime motive for activity.

- Havelock Ellis

Love, Prime, Certainly, Motive

I always seem to have a vague feeling that he is a Satan among musicians, a fallen angel in the darkness who is perpetually seeking to fight his way back to happiness.

- Havelock Ellis

Always, Vague, Perpetually, His Way

In the early days of Christianity the exercise of chastity was frequently combined with a close and romantic intimacy of affection between the sexes which shocked austere moralists.

- Havelock Ellis

Which, Early Days, Chastity

It has always been difficult for Man to realize that his life is all an art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so. For that is always how he has more or less acted it.

- Havelock Ellis

Art, Always, Been, Acted

Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy.

- Havelock Ellis

Genius, World, His, Angle

Still, whether we like it or not, the task of speeding up the decrease of the human population becomes increasingly urgent.

- Havelock Ellis

Like, Still, Increasingly, Decrease

'Charm' - which means the power to effect work without employing brute force - is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm.

- Havelock Ellis

Woman, Which, Means, Brute Force

The more rapidly a civilization progresses, the sooner it dies for another to rise in its place.

- Havelock Ellis

Civilization, More, Sooner, Rapidly

What we call 'morals' is simply blind obedience to words of command.

- Havelock Ellis

Blind, Call, Blind Obedience, Command

Education, whatever else it should or should not be, must be an inoculation against the poisons of life and an adequate equipment in knowledge and skill for meeting the chances of life.

- Havelock Ellis

Education, Against, Adequate, Chances

The romantic embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.

- Havelock Ellis

Music, Romantic, Embrace, Compared

Failing to find in women exactly the same kind of sexual emotions, as they find in themselves, men have concluded that there are none there at all.

- Havelock Ellis

Emotions, Kind, Concluded, Sexual

Of woman as a real human being, with sexual needs and sexual responsibilities, morality has often known nothing.

- Havelock Ellis

Woman, Human Being, Needs, Sexual

No act can be quite so intimate as the sexual embrace.

- Havelock Ellis

Embrace, Act, Quite, Sexual

However well organized the foundations of life may be, life must always be full of risks.

- Havelock Ellis

Chance, Always, However, Organized

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

- Havelock Ellis

Life, Holding On, Holding, Mingling

The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a Wilderness.

- Havelock Ellis

Always, Other, Side, Promised

Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.

- Havelock Ellis

Learn, Never, How, Root

There has never been any country at every moment so virtuous and so wise that it has not sometimes needed to be saved from itself.

- Havelock Ellis

Saved, Country, Been, Virtuous

Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.

- Havelock Ellis

Love, Jealousy, Which, Dragon

The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.

- Havelock Ellis

Beauty, Absence, Itself, Flaw

A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.

- Havelock Ellis

More, Swallow, Than, Digest

Pain and death are part of life. To reject them is to reject life itself.

- Havelock Ellis

Life, Pain, Itself, Reject

One can know nothing of giving aught that is worthy to give unless one also knows how to take.

- Havelock Ellis

Give, How, Take, Giving

What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.

- Havelock Ellis

Change, Call, Another, Nuisance

There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it.

- Havelock Ellis

War, Better, Ever, Achieved

Man lives by imagination.

- Havelock Ellis

Man, Imagination, Lives, Man Lives

Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?

- Havelock Ellis

Say, More, Last, Dreams

To be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men.

- Havelock Ellis

Men, Back, Must, Leader

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