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Definition: Koestler, Arthur from Philip's Encyclopedia

British novelist and philosopher, b. Hungary. After living in many European capitals during the 1920s and 1930s, he went to Spain as a journalist to cover the Spanish Civil War. Darkness at Noon (1940), Koestler's best-known novel, is a biting indictment of Stalinist totalitarianism. He died in a suicide pact with his wife.


Koestler, Arthur

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(kĕst'lӘr), 1905–83, English writer, b. Budapest of Hungarian parents. Koestler spent his early years in Vienna and Palestine. He was an influential Communist journalist in Berlin in the early 1930s, traveled through the Soviet Union, and moved to Paris. Later, as a correspondent for a British newspaper, he was captured and imprisoned by Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War; Spanish Testament (1937) and Dialogue with Death (1942) relate his experiences. Released in 1937, he edited an anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet French weekly and served in the French Foreign Legion (1939–40). After the German invasion he was interned in a concentration camp, but escaped from France in 1940 and lived thereafter in England and the United States, continuing to travel widely after the war. By 1940 Koestler had broken with Communism, largely as a result of the Soviet purge trials of the late 1930s and the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact of 1939. The anti-Communist Darkness at Noon (1941), his most…
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Full text Article Koestler, Arthur (1905–83)

From Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained
A writer, polymath and political thinker whose legacy enabled the founding of one of the most famous parapsychology units in the world. Arthur Koestler was born Kösztler Artúr in Budapest, in what was then Austria-Hungary and, after studying science and psychology at the University of Vienna, he…
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Full text Article Arthur Koestler (1905–1983)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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Full text Article CULTURE

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus the history of the human spirit. ARNOLD, Matthew Literature and Dogma . I wish I could bring Stonehenge to Nyasaland to show there was a time when Britain had a savage culture. BANDA, Dr Hastings The…
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Full text Article WRITERS

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted. AUDEN, W. H. The Dyer’s Hand (1963). I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and…
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Full text Article KOESTLER'S THEORY OF HUMOR/LAUGHTER

From Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories
The English writer Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) speculated that the ancient Greeks’ humorous attitude toward the stammering barbarian - much like the primitive person's laughter over a dying animal's anguished kicking and convulsing that presumably (in the savage's perception) “pretends” to suffer…
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Full text Article HISTORY

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
History, faced with courage, need not be lived again. [Speech at the Inauguration of President Clinton, 1993] Every time history repeats itself the price goes up. Real solemn history, I cannot be interested in ... The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all…
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Full text Article Koestler

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary Full text Article Biographical Names
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Full text Article GOD

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Even God is deprived of this one thing only: the power to undo what has been done. In Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics . Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends. ALLEN, Woody Getting Even (1971). The worst that can be said is that he’s an under-achiever. …
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Full text Article DEATH

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
[Remark made at a funeral] This is the last time I will take part as an amateur. [Attr.] Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. BACON, Francis Essays (1625). I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. [Quoted…
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Full text Article Koestler, Arthur

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born Sept. 5, 1905, Budapest, Hung.—found dead March 3, 1983, London, Eng.) Hungarian-British novelist, journalist, and critic. He is best known for Darkness at Noon (1940); a political novel examining the moral danger in a totalitarian system that sacrifices means to an end, it reflects the events…
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