Arthur Koestler Quotes

Quotes about:

• The creative act does not create something out of nothing; it uncovers, selects, reshuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideas, faculties, and skills.

  Arthur Koestler

  Skills, Ideas, Creative

  7 Copy quote

• Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.

  Arthur Koestler

  Courage, Business, Thought Provoking

  Arthur Koestler (1952). “Arrow in the blue: an autobiography”

  70 Copy quote

• The evils of mankind are caused, not by the primary aggressiveness of individuals, but by their self-transcending identification with groups whose common denominator is low intelligence and high emotionality.

  Arthur Koestler

  Self, Evil, Groups

  34 Copy quote

• The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.

  Arthur Koestler

  Men, Self, Church

  26 Copy quote

• The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.

  Arthur Koestler

  Carpe Diem, Perfection, Principles

  Arthur Koestler (1964). “The Act of Creation”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  35 Copy quote

• In any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean.

  Arthur Koestler

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Struggle

  20 Copy quote

• Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

  Arthur Koestler

  Inspiring, Teacher, Educational

  22 Copy quote

• Two half truths do not make a truth.

  Arthur Koestler

  Two, Half, Half Truth

  4 Copy quote

• I went to Communism as one goes to a spring of fresh water, and I left Communism as one clambers out of a poisoned river strewn with the wreckage of flooded cities and the corpses of the drowned.

  Arthur Koestler

  Spring, Cities, Rivers

  Arthur Koestler (1952). “Arrow in the blue: an autobiography”

  12 Copy quote

• One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Writing, Shut Up

  34 Copy quote

• Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.

  Arthur Koestler

  Motivational, Sad, Death

  28 Copy quote

• Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality.

  Arthur Koestler

  Creativity, Originality, Defeat

  Arthur Koestler, Harold Harris (1975). “Astride the two cultures: Arthur Koestler at 70”, Not Avail

  14 Copy quote

• Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself. Boredom sets into boring minds. The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.

  Arthur Koestler

  Mistake, Discovery, Long

  4 Copy quote

• The evolution of the brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use.

  Arthur Koestler

  Men, Brain, Needs

  "The Ghost in the Machine". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1967.

  12 Copy quote

• Brain-washing starts in the cradle.

  Arthur Koestler

  Brain, Cradle, Washing

  Arthur Koestler (1981). “Kaleidoscope: essays from Drinkers of infinity, and The heel of Achilles and later pieces and stories”, Vintage

  16 Copy quote

• Somebody once asked Niels Bohr why he had a horseshoe hanging above the front door of his house. Surely you, a world famous physicist, can't really believe that hanging a horseshoe above your door brings you luck? Of course not, Bohr replied, but I have been reliably informed that it will bring me luck whether I believe in it or not.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Doors, House

  22 Copy quote

• Honor is decency without vanity.

  Arthur Koestler

  Vanity, Honor, Decency

  7 Copy quote

• The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.

  Arthur Koestler

  Inspirational, Education, Business

  Arthur Koestler (1964). “The Act of Creation”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  14 Copy quote

• Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian.

  Arthur Koestler

  Men, Order, Evil

  Arthur Koestler (1969). “The Act of Creation”

  11 Copy quote

• True creativity often starts where language ends.

  Arthur Koestler

  Inspirational, Business, Creativity

  Arthur Koestler (1969). “The Act of Creation”

  10 Copy quote

• If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways.

  Arthur Koestler

  Israel, Way, Power Corrupts

  Arthur Koestler, Harold Harris (1975). “Astride the two cultures: Arthur Koestler at 70”, Not Avail

  17 Copy quote

• The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.

  Arthur Koestler

  Veterans Day, Military, War

  Janus (1978) prologue

  12 Copy quote

• The jester is brother to the sage.

  Arthur Koestler

  Brother, Sage, Jester

  58 Copy quote

• Wars are not fought for territory, but for words. Man's deadliest weapon is language. He is as susceptible to being hypnotized by slogans as he is to infectious diseases. And where there is an epidemic, the group-mind takes over.

  Arthur Koestler

  War, Men, Epidemics

  7 Copy quote

• When a chess player looks at the board, he does not see a static mosaic, a 'still life', but a magnetic field of forces, charged with energy - as Faraday saw the stresses surrounding magnets and currents as curves in space; or as Van Gogh saw vortices in the skies of Provence.

  Arthur Koestler

  Stress, Player, Curves

  13 Copy quote

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