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Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler Quotes

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Famous Arthur Koestler Quotes

“Some tribes [of monkeys] have taken to washing potatoes in the river before eating them, others have not. Sometimes migrating groups of potato-washers meet non-washers, and the two groups watch each other's strange behavior with apparent bewilderment. But unlike the inhabitants of Lilliput, who fought holy crusades over the question at which end to break the egg, the potato-washing monkeys do not go to war with the non-washers, because the poor creatures have no language which would enable them to declare washing a diving commandment and eating unwashed potatoes a deadly heresy.”

TwoWarEndsSometimesLanguagePoorWatchesBreakTakenGroupsSocietyStrangeHolyCreaturesBehaviorEatingRiversEggsCommandmentsTribesMonkeysPotatoesHeresyWashingCrusadesDivingBewilderment
Author:Arthur Koestler
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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.”

WorldMindFirstsHumansTwoSidesCreativityDevilResponsibleMonstersHuman MindMedalTwo SidesCathedralsMintPathologySplendourGargoyles
Book:Astride the two cultures: Arthur Koestler at 70
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“Coincidence may be described as the chance encounter of two unrelated causal chains which-miraculously, it seems-merge into a significant event. It provides the neatest paradigm of the bisociation of previously separate contexts, engineered by fate. Coincidences are puns of destiny. In the pun, two strings of thought are tangled into one acoustic knot; in the coincidental happening, two strings of events are knitted together by invisible hands.”

MayTwoHandsSeemsTogetherChanceDestinyFateEventsHappeningsSignificantInvisibleChainsEncountersStringsCoincidenceParadigmKnotsAcousticsTangledPunInvisible HandCoincidence In LifeChance EncountersSignificant Events
Author:Arthur Koestler
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