Arthur Koestler Quotes on Ethics

4 quotes

  1. 'In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite... Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naive as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.' (Source: The Invisible Writing)

  2. 'A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar.'

  3. 'Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.'

  4. 'Creativity in science could be described as the act of putting two and two together to make five' (cf Orwell, in 1984)

All Arthur Koestler quotes