Evil, as she saw it, need not be committed only by demonic monsters but—with disastrous effect—by morons and imbeciles as well, especially if, as we see in our own day, their deeds are sanctioned by religious authority.
HANNAH ARENDTHitlerism exercised its strong international and inter-European appeal during the thirties because racism, although a state doctrine only in Germany, had been a powerful trend in public opinion everywhere.
More Hannah Arendt Quotes
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Revolutionary action more often than not was a theatrical concession to the desires of violently discontented masses rather than an actual battle for power.
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Hitlerism exercised its strong international and inter-European appeal during the thirties because racism, although a state doctrine only in Germany, had been a powerful trend in public opinion everywhere.
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The only antidote to the irreversibility of history is the faculty of forgiveness.
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Evil thrives on apathy and cannot survive without it.
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There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.
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And if he suffers, he must suffer for what he has done, not for what he has caused others to suffer.
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To be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity.
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When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.
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War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
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The language of the mob was only the language of public opinion cleansed of hypocrisy and restraint.
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Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
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Plurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live.
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A collective tyrant, spread over the length and breadth of the land, is no more acceptable than a single tyrant ensconced upon his throne.
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Revolutionaries do not make revolutions! The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and when they can pick it up. Armed uprising by itself has never yet led to revolution.
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Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.
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In the Third Reich evil lost its distinctive characteristic by which most people had until then recognized it. The Nazis redefined it as a civil norm.
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Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
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Social and economic hatred, on the other hand, reinforced the political argument with that driving violence which up to then it had lacked completely.
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For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.
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It is only to stress the fact that the difference between a clandestine literature and no literature equals the difference between one and zero.
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We noted before that the passion of compassion was singularly absent from the minds and hearts of the men who made the American Revolution.
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What makes men obey or tolerate real power and, on the other hand, hate people who have wealth without power, is the rational instinct that power has a certain function and is of some general use.
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The antisemites who called themselves patriots introduced that new species of national feeling which consists primarily in a complete whitewash of one’s own people and a sweeping condemnation of all others.
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Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it—the quality of temptation.
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It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven’t done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent.
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Whatever can be taken away from a lasting enjoyment for its own sake cannot possibly be the proper object of desire.
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