Quotes from Arthur Koestler

Whoever proves right in the end must first be and do wrong. But it is only after the fact that we learn who was right to begin with.

In the ring this had always brought him considerable applause, but he had learned to his regret that in the class struggle the double Nelson was not done.

History has taught us that it must be served more frequently with lies than with the truth, because its human material is by nature sluggish: before every new stage of development the people must first be led through the wilderness for forty years—driven on with threats and enticements, with false frights and feigned consolation, so that they do not stop to rest and entertain themselves with the worship of golden calves.

From the Pythagoreans onward, through the Renaissance to our times, the oceanic feeling, the sense of participation in the mystery of the infinite, was the principle inspiration of that winged and flat-footed creature, the scientist.

The jokes in the previous section can all be described as universes of discourse colliding, frames getting entangled, or contexts getting confused.

Thus the pure archetypal harmonies, and their echoes, the musical consonances, are generated by dividing the circle by means of construable, regular polygons; wheras the 'unspeakable' polygons produce discordant sounds, and are useless in the scheme of the universe.

Da die Freiheit eine Sache der Gradunterschiede ist, so besteht die große Gefahr, daß diejenigen, welche nicht durch Erfahrung immun geworden sind, unmerklich in die aufeinanderfolgenden Grade von Unfreiheit hineingleiten. Dies gilt für unsre ganze westliche Zivilisation. Die großen Geschichtskatastrophen, wie der Zerfall Roms, kamen nicht in einem lauten Krach, sondern sie waren wie ein sachtes Abwärtsgleiten, das Jahrhunderte oder Jahrzehnte andauern kann.

Specialization, in morphogenesis as in other fields, exacts its price in creativity.

Conscience renders one as unfit for the revolution as a double chin. Conscience eats through the brain like a cancer, until the whole of the grey matter is devoured.

In those days the European continent had already reached a stage where a man could be told without irony that he should be thankful to be shot and not strangled, decapitated, or beaten to death.

It is perhaps significant that the German word for the Creator is Schopfer, and for certain schopfen-'to scoop' in the sense of drawing water in buckets from a well. The Creator is thus visualized as creating the world out of His own depth, and the creative mind with a small c is supposed to apply a similar procedure.

History knows no vacillating and no consideration for feelings. It flows, powerfully and unerringly, toward its goal. On every bend it deposits debris and sludge and the bodies of the drowned. But—it knows its course. History doesn't make mistakes.

For the same reason, he insisted on treating the sun as the centre of his system not only in the physical but in the geometrical sense, by making the distances and positions of the planets relative to the sun (and not relative to the earth or the centre C) the basis of his computations. The shift of emphasis, which was more instinctive than logical, became a major factor in his success.

Nu puteai fi sigur; puteai doar s? recurgi la acel oracol batjocoritor care se numeÈ™te istorie È™i care pronun?? sentinÈ›a abia dup? ce gura celui care-l consult? s-a umplut de mult cu ??rân?.

Ä°nsanlar?n elde edip tutmay? baÅŸarabilecekleri bireysel özgürlüÄŸün miktar? onlar?n politik olgunluÄŸuna baÄŸl?d?r. Gün ortas?nda karanl?k s.164

Noi toÈ›i am crezut c? istoria ar putea fi tratat? ca o experien?? de fizic?. Deosebirea este c? în fizic? poÈ›i repeta o experien?? de o mie de ori, dar în istorie o singur? dat?.[...] - ?i acum ce s? facem? întreb? Ivanov. S? st?m cu mâinile încruciÈ™ate pentru c? urm?rile unei acÈ›iuni nu pot fi pe deplin prev?zute È™i de aici rezult? c? orice acÈ›iune este d?un?toare?

The curse of 'spherism' upon man's vision of the universe lasted for two thousand years.

The controls of a skilled activity generally function below the level of consciousness on which that activity takes place. The code is a hidden persuader. This applies not only to our visceral activities and muscular skills, but also to the skill of perceiving the world around us in a coherent and meaningful manner.

Trace the contours of your face with a soapy finger on the bathroom mirror (it is easily done by closing one eye). There is a shock waiting: the image which looked life-size has shrunk to half-size, like a headhunter's trophy. A person walking away does not seem to become a dwarf -- as he should; a black glove looks just as black in the sunlight as in shadow -- though it should not;

Since we cannot in the foreseeable future expect the necessary change in human nature to arise by way of a spontaneous mutation, that is, by natural means, we must induce it by artificial means. We can only hope to survive as a species by developing techniques which supplant biological evolution. We must search for a cure for the schizophysiology inherent in man's nature, and the resulting split in our minds, which led to the situation in which we find ourselves.

The crimes of a caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada.

One conclusion which emerged from this imaginary operation was that all changes in electric and magnetic force (for instance, those caused by an oscillating circuit) sent waves spreading through space; and that these waves had the same transverse character, and the same speed, as light. 'We can scarcely avoid the inference', he wrote in a monumental sentence, 'that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.

The French attitude to the Finnish War reminded one of the voyeur who gets his thrills out of other people's manly exploits.

In his later years Faraday withdrew almost completely from social contacts, refusing even the presidency of the Royal Academy because of its too worldly disposition. The inhuman self-denials imposed by his creed made Faraday canalize his ferocious vitality into the pursuit of science, which he regarded as the only other permissible form of divine worship.