Men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic because they behave like the symbols for zero and the infinite , which dislocate all mathematical operations. Arthur Koestler More Quotes by Arthur Koestler More Quotes From Arthur Koestler The life we led was a proof of man's capacity for adaptation.I think that even the condemned souls in purgatory after time develop a sort of homely routine.That is ,by the way, why most prison memoirs are unreadable.The difficulty of conveying to the reader an idea of a nightmare world from which he has emerged makes the author depict the prisoner's state of mind as an uninterruped continuity of despair.He fears to appear frivolous or to spoil his effect by admitting that even in the depths of misery cheerfulness keeps breaking in. Arthur Koestler men ideas thinking In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot. Arthur Koestler coincidence-in-life tangled two 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 ridiculous want book When all is said, its atmosphere [England's] still contains fewer germs of aggression and brutality per cubic foot in a crowded bus, pub or queue than in any other country in which I have lived Arthur Koestler atmosphere feet country Habit is the denial of creativity and the negation of freedom; a self-imposed straitjacket of which the wearer is unaware. Arthur Koestler empathy creativity self Among all forms of mentation, verbal thinking is the most articulate, the most complex, and the most vulnerable to infectious diseases. It is liable to absorb whispered suggestions, and to incorporate them as hidden persuaders into the code. Arthur Koestler suggestions disease thinking 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 space discovery reality Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentleman's well-cut suit it is not noticed. For the common people of Britain, Gestapo and concentration camps have approximately the same degree of reality as the monster of Loch Ness. Atrocity propaganda is helpless against this healthy lack of imagination. Arthur Koestler cutting imagination reality 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 diagnosis evolution mistake We find in the history of ideas mutations which do not seem to correspond to any obvious need, and at first sight appear as mere playful whimsies such as Apollonius' work on conic sections, or the non-Euclidean geometries, whose practical value became apparent only later. Arthur Koestler sight ideas firsts If there is a lesson in our story it is that the manipulation, according to strictly self-consistent rules, of a set of symbols representing one single aspect of the phenomena may produce correct, verifiable predictions, and yet completely ignore all other aspects whose ensemble constitutes reality. Arthur Koestler self may reality Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which - miraculously, it seems - merge into a significant event. Arthur Koestler encounters may two Snobbery is not merely a silly human weakness but something basic in the mentality of modern man-a symptom which reflects the general sickness, the dislocation of social and cultural values in contemporary civilization. Arthur Koestler silly men civilization History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unerring, she flows towards her goal. At every bend in her course she leaves the mud which she carries and the corpses of the drowned. Arthur Koestler mud flow goal In the index to the six hundred odd pages of Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History, abridged version, the names of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes and Newton do not occur yet their cosmic quest destroyed the medieval vision of an immutable social order in a walled-in universe and transformed the European landscape, society, culture, habits and general outlook, as thoroughly as if a new species had arisen on this planet. Arthur Koestler historical names order The ultimate truth is penultimately a falsehood. Arthur Koestler falsehood ultimate truth The 'missing link' between ape and man will probably never be found- because it was an embryo. Arthur Koestler society missing men in the course of the last century science has become so dizzy with its successes, that it has forgotten to ask the pertinent questions- or refused to ask them under the pretext that they are meaningless, and in any case not the scientists concern. Arthur Koestler pertinent-questions lasts society A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar. Arthur Koestler bars cows writing The definition of the individual was: a multitude of one million divided by one million. Arthur Koestler multitudes individuality definitions
