Arthur Koestler ( 10 of 39 )
If the Creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.
If the Creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.
Brain-washing starts in the cradle.
Brain-washing starts in the cradle.
Every creative act involves...a new innocence of perception, liberated
from the cataract of accepted belief.
Every creative act involves...a new innocence of perception, liberated
from the cataract of accepted belief.
The inner censor of the mind of the true believer completes the work of the public censor; his self-discipline is read more
The inner censor of the mind of the true believer completes the work of the public censor; his self-discipline is as tyrannical as the obedience imposed by the regime; he terrorizes his own conscience into submission; he carries his private Iron Curtain inside his skull, to protect his illusions against the intrusion of reality.
The individual is not a killer, but the group is, and by identifying with it the individual is transformed into read more
The individual is not a killer, but the group is, and by identifying with it the individual is transformed into a killer.
The more backwoodish a social group, juvenile or adult, the stricter its conception of the normal, and the readier it read more
The more backwoodish a social group, juvenile or adult, the stricter its conception of the normal, and the readier it will ridicule any departure from it.
Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant read more
Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one's tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei. The emphasis is on unselfish. Excepting a small minority of mercenary or sadistic disposition, wars are not fought for personal gain, but out of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause. Homicide committed for personal reasons is a statistical rarity in all cultures, including our own. Homicide for unselfish reasons, at the risk of one's own life, is the dominant phenomenon of history.
From the psychological point of view, the self-asserting emotions, derived from emergency reactions, involve a narrowing of consciousness; the participatory read more
From the psychological point of view, the self-asserting emotions, derived from emergency reactions, involve a narrowing of consciousness; the participatory emotions an expansion of consciousness by identificatory processes of various kinds.
I think most historians will agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of read more
I think most historians will agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of history was small; first and foremost, the slaughter was meant as an offering to the gods, to king and country, or the future happiness of mankind. The crimes of Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapists, gangsters and other criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, just policy, or correct ideology.
...man has an irrepressible tendency to read meaning into the buzzing confusion of sights and sounds impinging on his senses; read more
...man has an irrepressible tendency to read meaning into the buzzing confusion of sights and sounds impinging on his senses; and where no agreed meaning can be found, he will provide it out of his own imagination.
