File:Arthur_Koestler_(1969).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Arthur Koestler
Sign in to saveAlso known as Kösztler Artúr
Hungarian-British author and journalist (1905–1983)
OverviewAI-generated
Arthur Koestler was a writer, philosopher, novelist, and journalist born in Budapest in 1905. He held citizenship in Austria–Hungary, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Hungary. Koestler was educated at TU Wien and spoke German, English, and French. He was a member of the Communist Party of Germany, the Modern Language Association, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom. His notable works include Darkness at Noon, The Thirteenth Tribe, and The Sleepwalkers.
He received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire and the Sonning Prize. Koestler’s lifestyle involved mysticism, and he was of the Jewish ethnic group. He died in London on 1 March 1983 from suicide caused by intoxication. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease. His name in his native language is Arthur Koestler, or Kösztler Artúr.
Synthesized by Vinony from 38 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Europeana Sparql, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 5 September 1905
- Died
- 1 March 1983
- Works
- 291
Top works
- The yogi and the commissar
- Đêm Hay Ngày
- Darkness at noon
- Afelah ba-tsohorayim
- Reünie
via Open Library + Wikidata
Music · MusicBrainz
- Type
- Person
- Gender
- Male
- Origin
- United Kingdom
- Active from
- 1859-05-22
- Active to
- 1930-07-07
Discography
via MusicBrainz · CC0
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 56
- Total plays
- 2,127
<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Arthur+Koestler">Read more on Last.fm</a>
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- AutoDock Vina: Improving the speed and accuracy of docking with a new scoring function, efficient optimization, and multithreading
· 2009 · cited 33,785x
- AutoDock4 and AutoDockTools4: Automated docking with selective receptor flexibility
· 2009 · cited 23,184x
- The cBio Cancer Genomics Portal: An Open Platform for Exploring Multidimensional Cancer Genomics Data
· 2012 · cited 15,168x
- Controlled growth of monodisperse silica spheres in the micron size range
· 1968 · cited 13,426x
- The Molecular Signatures Database Hallmark Gene Set Collection
· 2015 · cited 13,155x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentleman's well-cut suit — it is not noticed. For the common people of Britain, Gestapo and concentration camps have approximately the same degree of reality as the monster of Loch Ness. Atrocity propaganda is helpless against this healthy lack of imagination.”
- “Men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic because they behave like the symbols for zero and the infinite, which dislocate all mathematical operations.”
- “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 naïve 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.”
- “I profoundly admire Aldous Huxley, both for his philosophy and uncompromising sincerity. But I disagree with his advocacy of 'the chemical opening of doors into the Other World', and with his belief that drugs can procure 'what Catholic theologians call a gratuitous grace'. Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.”
- “Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”
- “Look at this. Did you ever see a magazine called the New Musical Express? It turns out there is a pop group called The Police — I don't know why they are called that, presumably to distinguish them from the punks — and they've made an album of my essay The Ghost in the Machine. I didn't know anything about it until my clipping agency sent me a review of the record.”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Works in European collections
2 objects attributed to Arthur Koestler, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Arthur Koestler CBE ( UK: /ˈkɜːstlər/, US: /ˈkɛst-/; German: [ˈaʁtuːɐ̯ ˈkœstlɐ]; Hungarian: Kösztler Artúr [ˈkøstlɛr ˈɒrtuːr]; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler joined the Communist Party of Germany but resigned in 1938 after becoming disillusioned with Stalinism.
Having moved to Britain in 1940, Koestler published his novel Darkness at Noon, an anti-totalitarian work that gained him international fame. Over the next 43 years, Koestler espoused many political causes and wrote novels, memoirs, biographies, and numerous essays. In 1949, Koestler began secretly working with a British Cold War anti-communist propaganda department known as the Information Research Department (IRD), which would republish and distribute many of his works, and also fund his activities. In 1968, he was awarded the Sonning Prize "for [his] outstanding contribution to European culture". In 1972, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Arthur Koestler” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.