305 Quotes by Arthur Koestler

The ultimate truth is penultimately a falsehood.

Modern man lives isolated in his artificial environment, not because the artificial is evil as such, but because of his lack of comprehension of the forces which make it work- of the principles which relate his gadgets to the forces of nature, to the universal order. It is not central heating which makes his existence 'unnatural,' but his refusal to take an interest in the principles behind it. By being entirely dependent on science, yet closing his mind to it, he leads the life of an urban barbarian.

Thus one should not underestimate ripeness as a factor facilitating discoveries which, as the saying goes, are ‘in the air’-meaning, that the various components which will go into the new synthesis are all lying around and only waiting for the trigger-action of chance, or the catalysing action of an exceptional brain, to be assembled and welded together. If one opportunity is missed, another will occur.

Art, like religion, is a school of self-transcendence; it expands individual awareness into cosmic awareness, as science teaches us to reduce any particular puzzle to the great universal puzzle.

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 old disease, thought Rubashov. Revolutionaries should not think through other people’s minds. Or, perhaps they should? Or even ought to? How can one change the world if one identifies oneself with everybody? How else can one change it? He who understands and forgives – where would he find a motive to act? Where would he not?

Creativity in science could be described as the act of putting two and two together to make five.

The habits and learning potentialities of all species are fixed within the narrow limits which the structure of its nervous system and organs permits; those of homo sapiens seem unlimited precisely because the possible uses of the evolutionary novelty in his skull were quite out of proportion with the demands of his natural environment.

A sadist is a person who is kind to a masochist.