305 Quotes by Arthur Koestler

The history of cosmic theories, in particular, may without exaggeration be called a history of collective obsessions and controlled schizophrenias; and the manner in which some of the most important individual discoveries were arrived at reminds one more of a sleepwalker’s performance than an electronic’s brain.

The problem of the planetary orbits had been hopelessly bogged down in its purely geometrical frame of reference, and when Kepler realized that he could not get it unstuck, he tore it out of that frame and removed it into the field of physics. This operation of removing a problem from its traditional context and placing it into a new one, looking at it through glasses of of a different colour as it were, has always seemed to me of the very essence of the creative process.

What made Newton’s postulate nevertheless a modern Law of Nature, was his mathematical formulation of the mysterious entity to which it referred. And that formulation Newton deduced from the discoveries of Kepler – who had intuitively glimpsed gravity, and shied away from it. In such crooked ways does the tree of science grow.

I merely wish to point out that some of the major break-throughs in the history of science represent such dramatic tours de force, that ‘ripeness’ seems a very lame explanation, and ‘chance’ no explanation at all. Einstein discovered the principle of relativity ‘unaided by any observation that had not been available for at least fifty years before’; the plum was overripe, yet for half a century nobody came to pluck it.

In other words, evolution is neither a free-for-all, nor the execution of a rigidly predetermined computer programme. It could be compared to a musical composition whose possibilities are limited by the rules of harmony and the structure of the diatonic scales-which, however, permit an inexhaustible number of original creations. Or it could be compared to the game of chess obeying fixed rules but with equally inexhaustible variations.

Emphasis and implication are complementary techniques. The first bullies the audience into acceptance; the second entices it into mental collaboration; the first forces the offer down the consumer’s throat; the second tantalizes, to whet his appetite.

The popular image of the Magician has certain features in common with that of the Artist: both are unselfishly devoted to lofty tasks-which frequently overlapped in the uomo universale of the Renaissance.

But where is the jury who decides whether devotion is of the ‘right’ or the ‘misguided’ kind?

It is obvious’, says Hadamard, ‘that invention or discovery, be it in mathematics or anywhere else, takes place by combining ideas... The Latin verb cogito for “to think” etymologically means “to shake together”. St. Augustine had already noticed that and also observed that intelligo means “to select among”.