Arthur Koestler Quotes - Page 5

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• Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which - miraculously, it seems - merge into a significant event.

  Arthur Koestler

  Two, Encounters, May

  "Bricks to Babel: Selected Writings". Book by Arthur Koestler, 1980.

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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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• 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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• Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won't triumph over his fate.

  Arthur Koestler

  Lying, Fate, Technology

  1953 'The Boredomof Fantasy', collected in The Trail of the Dinosaur (1955), pt.2.

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

  Arthur Koestler

  Creating, Brain, Evolution

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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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• 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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• 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 more backwoodish a social group, juvenile or adult, the stricter its conception of the normal, and the readier it will ridicule any departure from it.

  Arthur Koestler

  Society, Adults, Groups

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

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• Most of us were not afraid of death, only of the act of dying; and there were times when we overcame even this fear. At such moments we were free-men without shadows, dismissed from the ranks of the mortal; it was the most complete experience of freedom that can be granted a man.

  Arthur Koestler

  Men, Shadow, Dying

  Arthur Koestler (2011). “Dialogue with Death: The Journal of a Prisoner of the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War”, p.204, University of Chicago Press

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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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• Newton's apple and Cezanne's apple are discoveries more closely related than they seem.

  Arthur Koestler

  Science, Discovery, Apples

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

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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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• 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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• To want to meet an author because you like his books is as ridiculous as wanting to meet the goose because you like pate de foie gras.

  Arthur Koestler

  Book, Want, Ridiculous

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• There is an abundance of ancient place names in the Ukraine and Poland, which derive from 'Khazar' or 'Zhid' (Jew).

  Arthur Koestler

  Ukraine, Names, Ancient

  Arthur Koestler (1976). “The thirteenth tribe: the Khazar empire and its heritage”, Random House Inc

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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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• The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

  Arthur Koestler

  Book, Doors, Cells

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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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• 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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• 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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