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We cannot unthink unless we are insane.

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
Insanity
Insane
Unless
Cannot
Thinking

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The jester is brother to the sage.
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the self-assertive tendency is the dynamic expression of the holon's wholeness, the integrative tendency, the dynamic expression of its partness.
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No writer or teacher or artist can escape the responsibility of influencing others whether he intends to or not, whether he is conscious of it or not.
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The inner defenses are unconscious. They consist of a kind of magic aura which the mind builds around cherished belief. Arguments which penetrate into the magic aura are not dealt with rationally but by a specific type of pseudo-reasoning. Absurdities and contradictions are made acceptable by specious rationalizations.
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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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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.
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Honor is decency without vanity.
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In creating the human brain, evolution has wildly overshot the mark.
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One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions.
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There is an abundance of ancient place names in the Ukraine and Poland, which derive from 'Khazar' or 'Zhid' (Jew).
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One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.
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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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Newton's apple and Cezanne's apple are discoveries more closely related than they seem.
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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.
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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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When a chess player looks at the board, he does not see a static mosaic, a 'still life', but a magnetic field of forces, charged with energy - as Faraday saw the stresses surrounding magnets and currents as curves in space or as Van Gogh saw vortices in the skies of Provence.
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The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than those of Satan.
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The discoveries of yesterday are the truisms of tomorrow, because we can add to our knowledge but cannot subtract from it.
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A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar.
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In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot.
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