"Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting"
About this Quote
The subtext is both democratic and faintly elitist. “Every man” gestures to universality, but the gate is clear: “who knows how to read.” Huxley, writing from a 20th-century Britain still marked by steep educational divides, is praising a tool that can quietly sabotage inherited hierarchy. If you can read, you can self-educate, self-invent, outgrow the story you were assigned. That’s the liberation pitch.
It’s also a warning about what a culture loses when reading thins out. “Multiply the ways in which he exists” implies that without sustained reading, life can collapse into a single track: one job, one feed, one identity reinforced by repetition. In an era of propaganda, mass media, and ideological churn - the world Huxley watched harden between wars - reading becomes not escapism but insurance: a way to stay plural, mentally mobile, difficult to reduce.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Huxley, Aldous. (2026, January 15). Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/every-man-who-knows-how-to-read-has-it-in-his-3099/
Chicago Style
Huxley, Aldous. "Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/every-man-who-knows-how-to-read-has-it-in-his-3099/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/every-man-who-knows-how-to-read-has-it-in-his-3099/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.











