black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin.

Hannah Arendt

Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality—whatever it may be or might have been.
HANNAH ARENDT

Advice Reality
The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.
HANNAH ARENDT

Enemy Greatness Laughter
Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians – we call them children.
HANNAH ARENDT

Children Nation
Social and economic hatred, on the other hand, reinforced the political argument with that driving violence which up to then it had lacked completely.
HANNAH ARENDT

Hands Hate Politics Violence
Revolutionary action more often than not was a theatrical concession to the desires of violently discontented masses rather than an actual battle for power.
HANNAH ARENDT

Action Battle Desire Power Revolution Violence
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.
HANNAH ARENDT

Opinion Powerful Race
Evil thrives on apathy and cannot survive without it.
HANNAH ARENDT

Evil Survive
To be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity.
HANNAH ARENDT

Road Sanity
But this was a moral question, and the answer to it may not have been legally relevant.
HANNAH ARENDT

Moral Philosophy
Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.
HANNAH ARENDT

Attraction Politics Won
The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them.
HANNAH ARENDT

Government Man Nature
Factuality itself depends for its continued existence upon the existence of the nontotalitarian world.
HANNAH ARENDT

Existence World
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
HANNAH ARENDT

Evil Goodness Mindset People Sad Truth
War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
HANNAH ARENDT

Luxury Nation War
The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
HANNAH ARENDT

Destruction Education
And the distinction between violent and non-violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old, and the latter is chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new.
HANNAH ARENDT

Destruction Establishment Old Violence

Men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Hannah Arendt Quotes