The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays Quotes

“The deterioration of the intelligentsia is as much a symptom of disease as the corruption of the ruling class or the sleeping sickness of the proletariat.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays

“The pressure of the environment cramps art as it cramps behaviour. One may challenge this environment, but one has to pay for it, and the price is neurotic guilt. There never was an intelligentsia without a guilt complex; it is the income tax one has to pay for wanting to make others richer.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays

“The distance between the library and the bedroom is astronomical”
― Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays

“The less consciously we drift with the wind, the more willingly we do it; the more consciously, the less willingly.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays

“Da die Freiheit eine Sache der Gradunterschiede ist, so besteht die große Gefahr, daß diejenigen, welche nicht durch Erfahrung immun geworden sind, unmerklich in die aufeinanderfolgenden Grade von Unfreiheit hineingleiten. Dies gilt für unsre ganze westliche Zivilisation. Die großen Geschichtskatastrophen, wie der Zerfall Roms, kamen nicht in einem lauten Krach, sondern sie waren wie ein sachtes Abwärtsgleiten, das Jahrhunderte oder Jahrzehnte andauern kann.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar, and Other Essays