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one of the tests of a theory is that, once grasped, it appears self-evident.

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
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Tests
Theory
Society
Self
Grasped
Evident

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In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot.
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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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Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse.
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When reality becomes unbearable, the mind must withdraw from it and create a world of artificial perfection. Plato's world of pure Ideas and Forms, which alone is to be considered as real, whereas the world of nature which we perceive is merely its cheap Woolworth copy, is a flight into delusion.
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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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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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The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.
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The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than those of Satan.
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The definition of the individual was: a multitude of one million divided by one million.
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Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.
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Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness. Both are funny, but only in retrospect.
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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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You can't help people being right for the wrong reasons...This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity it is an expression of a lack of self-confidence.
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A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar.
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The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.
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Woe unto the defeated, whom history treads into the dust.
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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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Wars are not fought for territory, but for words. Man's deadliest weapon is language. He is as susceptible to being hypnotized by slogans as he is to infectious diseases. And where there is an epidemic, the group-mind takes over.
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