Darkness At Noon Quotes

“What had he said to them? "I bow my knees before the country, before the masses, before the whole people...." And what then? What happened to these masses, to this people? For forty years it had been driven through the desert, with threats and promises, with imaginary terrors and imaginary rewards. But where was the Promised Land? Did there really exist any such goal for this wandering mankind? That was a question to which he would have liked an answer before it was too late. Moses had not been allowed to enter the land of promise either, But he had been allowed to see it, from the top of the mountain, spread at his feet. Thus, it was easy to die, with the visible certainty of one's goal before one's eyes. He, Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov, had not been taken to the top of a mountain; and wherever his eye looked, he saw nothing but desert and the darkness of night.”
― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

“...The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been.”
― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

“For in a struggle one must have both legs firmly planted on the
earth. The Party had taught one how to do it. The infinite was a
politically suspect quantity, the `I' a suspect quality. The Party did not
recognize its existence. The definition of an individual was: a multitude
of one million divided by one million.”
― Arthur Koestler

“- Noi toți am crezut că istoria ar putea fi tratată ca o experiență de fizică. Deosebirea este că în fizică poți repeta o experiență de o mie de ori, dar în istorie o singură dată.[...]
- Și acum ce să facem? întrebă Ivanov. Să stăm cu mâinile încrucișate pentru că urmările unei acțiuni nu pot fi pe deplin prevăzute și de aici rezultă că orice acțiune este dăunătoare?”
― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

“Nu puteai fi sigur; puteai doar să recurgi la acel oracol batjocoritor care se numește istorie și care pronunță sentința abia după ce gura celui care-l consultă s-a umplut de mult cu țărână.”
― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon