one of the tests of a theory is that, once grasped, it appears self-evident. Arthur Koestler More Quotes by Arthur Koestler More Quotes From Arthur Koestler Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears. Arthur Koestler thought-provokingbusinesscourage 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 groupsselfevil One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up. Arthur Koestler shut-upwritingbelieve The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers. Arthur Koestler carpe-diemprinciplesperfection 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 churchselfmen The real achievement in discoveries... is seeing an analogy where no one saw one before... The essence of discovery is that unlikely marriage of cabbages and kings — of previously unrelated frames of reference or universes of discourse — whose union will solve the previously insoluble problem. Arthur Koestler realdiscoveryscience When a person identifies himself with a group his critical faculties are diminished and his passions enhanced by a kind of emotive resonance. The individual is not a killer, the group is, and by identifying with it, the individual becomes one. This is the infernal dialect reflected in man's history. Arthur Koestler passionmenhistory The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes, or short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the surface of consciousness. The diver vanishes at one end of the chain and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links. Arthur Koestler intuitionlinksgiving The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated. Arthur Koestler storieslookspast 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 citiesspringrivers Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion. Arthur Koestler sadmotivationaldeath If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways. Arthur Koestler power-corruptsisraelway Brain-washing starts in the cradle. Arthur Koestler washingcradlebrain In any language it is a struggle to make a sentence say exactly what you mean. Arthur Koestler encouragingstruggleinspirational Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which-miraculously, it seems-merge into a significant event. It provides the neatest paradigm of the bisociation of previously separate contexts, engineered by fate. Coincidences are puns of destiny. In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot; in the coincidental happening, two strings of events are knitted together by invisible hands. Arthur Koestler fatedestinyhands The creativity and pathology of the human mind are, after all, two sides of the same medal coined in the evolutionary mint. The first is responsible for the splendour of our cathedrals, the second for the gargoyles that decorate them to remind us that the world is full of monsters, devils, and succubi. Arthur Koestler two-sidescreativitymind I have repeatedly stressed that the selfish impulses of man constitute a much less historic danger than his integrative tendencies. To put it in the simplest way: the individual who indulges in an excess of aggressive self-assertiveness incurs the penalties of society-he outlaws himself, he contracts out of the hierarchy. The true believer, on the other hand, becomes more closely knit into it; he enters the womb of his church, or party, or whatever the social holon to which he surrenders his identity. Arthur Koestler selfishpartymen The integrative tendencies of the individual are incomparably more dangerous than his self-assertive tendencies. Arthur Koestler tendenciesindividualself The integrative tendencies of the individual operate through the mechanisms of empathy, sympathy, projection, introjection, identification, worship- all of which make him feel that he is a part of some larger entity which transcends the boundaries of the individual self. This psychological urge to belong, to participate, to commune is as primary and real as its opposite. The all-important question is the nature of that higher entity of which the individual feels himself a part. Arthur Koestler realselfopposites The purposiveness of all vital processes, the strategy of the genes and the power of the exploratory drive in animal and man, all seem to indicate that the pull of the future is as real as the pressure of the past. Arthur Koestler realanimalpast
