“The sixth pre-Christian century—the miraculous century of Buddha, Confucius and Lâo-Tse, of the Ionian philosophers and Pythagoras—was a turning point for the human species. A March breeze seemed to blow across the planet from China to Samos, stirring man into awareness, like the breath of Adam's nostrils. In the Ionian school of philosophy, rational thought was emerging from the mythological dream-world. …which, within the next two thousand years, would transform the species more radically than the previous two hundred thousand had done.”

The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)

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Arthur Koestler25

Hungarian-British author and journalist 1905–1983

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Arthur Koestler25

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