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The progress of science, like an ancient desert trail, is strewn with the bleached skeletons of discarded theories, doctrines, and axioms which seemed to possess eternal life.

Arthur Koestler

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Arthur Koestler
Age: 77 †
Born: 1905
Born: September 5
Died: 1983
Died: March 1
Author
Autobiographer
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Screenwriter
Writer
Buda Pest
Kösztler Artúr
Theory
Trails
Progress
Theories
Bleached
Science
Possess
Strewn
Life
Desert
Axioms
Like
Seemed
Skeletons
Ancient
Discarded
Eternal
Trail
Walking
Doctrines

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Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.
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In creating the human brain, evolution has wildly overshot the mark.
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The new frontiers to be conquered are mainly in the convolutions of the cortex.
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Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky.
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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.
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Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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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.
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Woe unto the defeated, whom history treads into the dust.
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Faith is a wondrous thing it is not only capable of moving mountains, but also of making you believe that a herring is a race horse.
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Somebody once asked Niels Bohr why he had a horseshoe hanging above the front door of his house. Surely you, a world famous physicist, can't really believe that hanging a horseshoe above your door brings you luck? Of course not, Bohr replied, but I have been reliably informed that it will bring me luck whether I believe in it or not.
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Every creative act – in science, art, or religion – involves a regression to a more primitive level, a new innocence of perception liberated from the cataract of accepted beliefs.
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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.
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...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to the flag, a leader, a religeous faith or political conviction.
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Brain-washing starts in the cradle.
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The jester is brother to the sage.
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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.
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History had a slow pulse man counted in years, history in generations
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The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.
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The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.
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