Quotes from book
The Act of Creation

Name: The Act of Creation
Author: Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler

The Act of Creation is a 1964 book by Arthur Koestler. It is a study of the processes of discovery, invention, imagination and creativity in humour, science, and the arts. It lays out Koestler's attempt to develop an elaborate general theory of human creativity.

“The more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.”

Arthur Koestler book The Act of Creation

The Act of Creation (1970).

“Without the hard little bits of marble which are called 'facts' or 'data' one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.”

Arthur Koestler book The Act of Creation

The Act of Creation (1970).

“Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself.”

Arthur Koestler book The Act of Creation

The Act of Creation, London, (1970) p. 253.
Context: Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrant nude differs from a nude by Manet.