War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars. — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The inner defenses are unconscious. They consist of a kind of magic aura which the mind builds around cherished belief. Arguments which penetrate into… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than those of Satan. — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The greatest temptation for the like of us is: to renounce violence, to repent, to make peace with oneself. Most revolutionaries fell before this… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The revolutions of thought which shape the basic outlook of an age are not disseminated through text-books- they spread like epidemics, through contamination by… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes,… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which - miraculously, it seems - merge into a significant event. — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
“Revolutionary theory had frozen to a dogmatic cult, with a simplified, easily graspable catechism, and with No. 1 as the high priest celebrating the Mass.” — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The more backwoodish a social group, juvenile or adult, the stricter its conception of the normal, and the readier it will ridicule any departure… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
As modern physics started with the Newtonian revolution, so modern philosophy starts with what one might call the Cartesian Catastrophe. The catastrophe consisted in… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood. He who will be proved right in the end appears to be wrong and harmful before… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
The real achievement in discoveries... is seeing an analogy where no one saw one before... The essence of discovery is that unlikely marriage of… — Arthur Koestler Copy Share Image
