Arthur Koestler Quotes

Most popular Arthur Koestler Quotes

Thou shalt not carry moderation into excess. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Thou shalt not carry moderation into excess.
— Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler: The Story of a Friendship

moderation

True creativity often starts where language ends. - Arthur Koestler quote.
True creativity often starts where language ends.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

creativity

Yesterday's daring metaphors are today's clichés. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Yesterday's daring metaphors are today's clichés.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

metaphor

Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.
— Arthur Koestler

science

No death is so sad and final as the death of an illusion. - Arthur Koestler quote.
No death is so sad and final as the death of an illusion.
— Arthur Koestler Scum of the Earth

illusion

Definition of adolescence: A Kind of emotional seasickness. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Definition of adolescence: A Kind of emotional seasickness.
— Arthur Koestler

adolescence

We can add to our knowledge, but we cannot subtract from it. - Arthur Koestler quote.
We can add to our knowledge, but we cannot subtract from it.
— Arthur Koestler The Sleep Walkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe

knowledge

The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

discovery originality

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out. - Arthur Koestler quote.
God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.
— Arthur Koestler The Ghost in the Machine

God

One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions. - Arthur Koestler quote.
One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions.
— Arthur Koestler Darkness at Noon

the world

Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness.  Both are funny, but only in retrospect. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Adolescence is a kind of emotional seasickness.  Both are funny, but only in retrospect.
— Arthur Koestler Arrow in the Blue: An Autobiography

adolescence

It has been said that discovery consists in seeing an analogy which nobody had seen before. - Arthur Koestler quote.
It has been said that discovery consists in seeing an analogy which nobody had seen before.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

analogy

The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

originality forgetting

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

genius perfection originality

The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums.
— Arthur Koestler Janus: A Summing Up

war history

The limitations of our biological equipment may condemn us to the role of Peeping Toms at the keyhole of eternity. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The limitations of our biological equipment may condemn us to the role of Peeping Toms at the keyhole of eternity.
— Arthur Koestler The Roots of Coincidence

scientists

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
— Arthur Koestler Brain Function

creativity

The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached skeleton of discarded theories which once seemed to possess eternal life. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The progress of science is strewn, like an ancient desert trail, with the bleached skeleton of discarded theories which once seemed to possess eternal life.
— Arthur Koestler
The principle mark of genius is not perfection, but originality, the opening of new frontiers; once this is done, the conquered territory becomes common property. - Arthur Koestler quote.
The principle mark of genius is not perfection, but originality, the opening of new frontiers; once this is done, the conquered territory becomes common property.
— Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation

genius

Zen is to religion what a Japanese "rock garden" is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs.  It has no doctrine or holy writ. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Zen is to religion what a Japanese "rock garden" is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs.  It has no doctrine or holy writ.
— Arthur Koestler Bricks to Babel: Selected Writings

Zen

I went to Communism as one goes to a spring of fresh water, and I left Communism as one clambers out of a poisoned river strewn with the wreckage of flooded cities and the corpses of the drowned.  This, in sum, is my story. - Arthur Koestler quote.
I went to Communism as one goes to a spring of fresh water, and I left Communism as one clambers out of a poisoned river strewn with the wreckage of flooded cities and the corpses of the drowned.  This, in sum, is my story.
— Arthur Koestler The Invisible Writing

communism

In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of physical equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small fragment. - Arthur Koestler quote.
In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of physical equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small fragment.
— Arthur Koestler Bricks to Babel

universe

Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrandt nude differs from a nude by Manet. - Arthur Koestler quote.
Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrandt nude differs from a nude by Manet.
— Arthur Koestler

art science