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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
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Arthur Koestler
Age: 77 †
Born: 1905
Born: September 5
Died: 1983
Died: March 1
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Journalist
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Philosopher
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Buda Pest
Kösztler Artúr
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More quotes by Arthur Koestler
The thing represented had to pass through two distorting lenses: the artist's mind, and his medium of expression, before it emerged as a man-made dream - the two, of course, being intimately connected and interacting with each other.
Arthur Koestler
One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions.
Arthur Koestler
The Revolutionary's Utopia, which in appearance represents a complete break with the past, is always modeled on some image of the Lost Paradise, of a legendary Golden Age... All utopias are fed from the source of mythology the social engineers' blueprints are merely revised editions of the ancient text.
Arthur Koestler
The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.
Arthur Koestler
History had a slow pulse man counted in years, history in generations
Arthur Koestler
One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.
Arthur Koestler
Brain-washing starts in the cradle.
Arthur Koestler
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.
Arthur Koestler
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.
Arthur Koestler
In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot.
Arthur Koestler
To want to meet an author because you like his books is as ridiculous as wanting to meet the goose because you like pate de foie gras.
Arthur Koestler
The individual is not a killer, but the group is, and by identifying with it the individual is transformed into a killer.
Arthur Koestler
Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness. Both are funny, but only in retrospect.
Arthur Koestler
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
The 'missing link' between ape and man will probably never be found- because it was an embryo.
Arthur Koestler
Honor is decency without vanity.
Arthur Koestler
A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar.
Arthur Koestler
The more backwoodish a social group, juvenile or adult, the stricter its conception of the normal, and the readier it will ridicule any departure from it.
Arthur Koestler
In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutations plus natural selection -quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection tautology.
Arthur Koestler
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 the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.
Arthur Koestler
