Quotes from Arthur Koestler

Tardé muchos años en descubrir que el inquieto viajero solo tenía una meta: huir de sí mismo

The fact that his discoveries are found in it once more side by side with his fantasies, does not detract from its value. It is precisely this overlapping of two universe of thought, which gives the Epitome, as it does to the whole of Kepler's life and work, its unique value to the history of ideas.

En la ecuación social, el valor de una sola vida es cero; en la ecuación cósmica, es infinito.

In folklore and popular literature the Artist is traditionally represented as an inspired dreamer-a solitary figure, eccentric, impractical, unselfish, and quixotic.

while language facilitates communication within the group, it also crystallises cultural differences, and actually heightens the barriers between groups.

Die Geschichte hat uns gelehrt, dass man ihr häufiger mit der Lüge als mit der Wahrheit dienen muss, denn ihr Material, der Mensch, ist träge und muss vor jeder neuen Stufe seiner Entwicklung erst vierzig Jahre durch die Wüste geführt werden. Und man muss ihn durch die Wüste treiben mit Drohungen und Lockungen, mit erlogenen Schrecken und erlogenem Trost, damit er sich nicht vorzeitig zur Ruhe setzt und mit der Anbetung goldener Kälber vergnügt.

Insight depends on the multi-dimensional analysis of the input in its various aspects, on extracting relevant messages from irrelevant noise, identifying patterns in the mosaic until it has become saturated, as it were, with meaning.

All decisive advances in the history of scientific thought can be described in terms of mental cross-fertilization between different disciplines.

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

Every good joke contains an element of the riddle-it may be childishly simple, or subtle and challenging-which the listener must solve. By doing so, he is lifted out of his passive role and compelled to co-operate, to repeat to some extent the process of inventing the joke, to re-create it in his imagination. The type of entertainment dished out by the mass media makes one apt to forget that true recreation is re-creation.

Without the hard little bits of marble which are called 'facts' or 'data' one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much of the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.

The history of art could be written in terms of the artist's struggle against the deadening cumulative effect of saturation. The way out of the cul-de-sac is either a revolutionary departure towards new horizons, or the rediscovery of past techniques, or a combination of both

There is a strangely consistent parallel between Copernicus' character, and the humble, devious manner in which the Copernican revolution entered through the back door of history, preceded by the apologetic remark: 'Please don't take seriously - it is all meant in fun, for mathematicians only, and highly improbable indeed.

The popular image of the Magician has certain features in common with that of the Artist: both are unselfishly devoted to lofty tasks-which frequently overlapped in the uomo universale of the Renaissance.

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

the artist rules his subjects by turning them into accomplices.

Porque la audacia es una virtud, y las lágrimas de la posteridad serán perlas, pero los negocios son los negocios.

One method of economy is 'leaving out' - firstly, everything that by the writer's standards is irrelevamt, in the second place everything that is obvious, i.e. which the reader can and should supply out of his own imagination. 'The more bloody good stuff you cut out the more bloody good your novel will be,' Hemingway advised a young writer.

Consciousness in this view is an emergent quality, which evolves into more complex and structured states in phylogeny, as the ultimate manifestation of the Integrative Tendency towards the creation of order out of disorder, of 'information' out of 'noise'.

The exercise of a skill is always under the dual control (a) of a fixed code of rules (which may be innate or acquired by learning) and (b) of a flexible strategy, guided by environmental pointers- the lie of the land.

The two together-intellectual illumination and emotional catharsis-are the essence of the aesthetic experience. The first constitutes the moment of truth; the second provides the experience of beauty. The two are complementary aspects of an indivisible process-that 'earthing' process where 'the infinite is made to blend itself with the finite, to stand visible, as it were, attainable there' (Carlyle).

The philosophy of nature evolved by occasional leaps and bounds alternating with delusional pursuits, culs-de-sac, regressions, periods of blindness, and amnesia. The great discoveries which determined its course were sometimes the unexpected by-products of a chase after quite different hares. At other times, the process of discovery consisted merely in the cleaning away of the rubbish that blocked the path, or in the rearranging of existing items of knowledge in a different pattern.

When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even deceit, treachery, violence, usury, prison, and death. Because order serves the good of the community, the individual must be sacrificed for the common good. Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes, from the Close of the Middle Ages, after Dietrich von Nieheim in De modis uniendiae reformandi ecclesiam, 1410

The superimposition of two systems: thought and metre,' wrote Proust, 'is a primary element of ordered complexity, that is to say, of beauty.