Arthur Koestler Quotes - Page 5

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• You can't help people being right for the wrong reasons...This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity; it is an expression of a lack of self-confidence.

  Arthur Koestler

  Self Confidence, Expression, People

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• The individual is not a killer, but the group is, and by identifying with it the individual is transformed into a killer.

  Arthur Koestler

  Society, Groups, Killers

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

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• one of the tests of a theory is that, once grasped, it appears self-evident.

  Arthur Koestler

  Self, Society, Tests

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• What is an editor but a cross between a fall guy and a father figure? arthur koestler

  Arthur Koestler

  Family, Father, Fall

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• There is only one prospect worse than being chained to an intolerable existence: The nightmare of a botched attempt to end it.

  Arthur Koestler

  Sad, Suicidal, Nightmare

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• Some of the greatest discoveries...consist mainly in the clearing away of psychological roadblocks which obstruct the approach to reality; which is why,post factum they appear so obvious.

  Arthur Koestler

  Reality, Discovery, Psychological

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• The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

  Arthur Koestler

  Book, Doors, Cells

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• No writer or teacher or artist can escape the responsibility of influencing others whether he intends to or not, whether he is conscious of it or not.

  Arthur Koestler

  Teacher, Teaching, Responsibility

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

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• The 'gallows' are not only a symbol of death, but also a symbol of cruelty, terror and irreverence for life; the common denominator of primitive savagery, medieval fanaticism and modern totalitarianism.

  Arthur Koestler

  Irreverence, Common, Medieval

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• The ultimate truth is penultimately a falsehood.

  Arthur Koestler

  Truth, Ultimate, Falsehood

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• ...the cosmology of a given age is not the result of unilinear, "scientific" development, but rather the most striking, imaginative symbol of its mentality- the projection of its conflicts, prejudice and specific ways of double-think onto the graceful sky.

  Arthur Koestler

  Thinking, Sky, Age

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• Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness. Both are funny, but only in retrospect.

  Arthur Koestler

  Emotional, Retrospect, Kind

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

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• A writer's ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years' time and for one reader in a hundred years' time.

  Arthur Koestler

  Ambition, Years, Hundred

  In 'New York Times Book Review' 1 April 1951

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• Hitherto man had to live with the idea of death as an individual; from now onward mankind will have to live with the idea of its death as a species.

  Arthur Koestler

  Death, Science, Men

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

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• Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky.

  Arthur Koestler

  Science, Technology, Reality

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

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• Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky . The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrant nude differs from a nude by Manet.

  Arthur Koestler

  Reality, Space, Discovery

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

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• In creating the human brain, evolution has wildly overshot the mark.

  Arthur Koestler

  Creating, Brain, Evolution

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• The fact is: I no longer believe in my own infallibility. That is why I am lost.

  Arthur Koestler

  Believe, Facts, Lost

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• I profoundly admire Aldous Huxley, both for his philosophy and uncompromising sincerity. But I disagree with his advocacy of 'the chemical opening of doors into the Other World', and with his belief that drugs can procure 'what Catholic theologians call a gratuitous grace'. Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.

  Arthur Koestler

  Philosophy, Doors, Other Worlds

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

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• Death tripped down the corridor, changing step, struck out here and there, danced pirouettes; often I felt his breath on my face when he was miles away; often I fell asleep and dreamed while he stood leaning over my bed.

  Arthur Koestler

  Bed, Here And There, Pirouettes

  Arthur Koestler (2011). “Dialogue with Death: The Journal of a Prisoner of the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War”, p.202, University of Chicago Press

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• History is a priori amoral; it has no conscience.

  Arthur Koestler

  Conscience

  Arthur Koestler (2009). “Darkness at Noon: A Novel”, p.122, Simon and Schuster

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• Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

  Arthur Koestler

  Mean, Breathing Space, History

  Arthur Koestler (2015). “Darkness at Noon”, p.98, Simon and Schuster

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• The disastrous history of our species indicates the futility of all attempts at a diagnosis which do not take into account the possibility that homo sapiens is a victim of one of evolution's countless mistakes.

  Arthur Koestler

  Mistake, Diagnosis, Evolution

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• Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.

  Arthur Koestler

  Funny, Science, Eternity

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• Wherever we find orderly, stable systems in Nature, we find that they are hierarchically structured, for the simple reason that without such structuring of complex systems into sub-assemblies, there could be no order and stability- except the order of a dead universe filled with a uniformly distributed gas.

  Arthur Koestler

  Simple, Order, Society

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