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 ARENDTIt is only to stress the fact that the difference between a clandestine literature and no literature equals the difference between one and zero.
More Hannah Arendt Quotes
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Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
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Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identified with man’s freedom. ‘That a beginning be made man was created’ said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man.
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One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.
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There is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future will reveal its merits.
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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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Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality—whatever it may be or might have been.
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The most radical and the only secure form of possession is destruction, for only what we have destroyed is safely and forever ours.
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The only antidote to the irreversibility of history is the faculty of forgiveness.
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The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.
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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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Justice demands seclusion, it permits sorrow rather than anger, and it prescribes the most careful abstention from all the nice pleasures of putting oneself in the limelight.
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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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We first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others, not in the intercourse with ourselves.
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Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.
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Tools and instruments which can ease the effort of labor considerably are themselves not a product of labor but of work; they do not belong in the process of consumption but are part and parcel of the world of use objects.
HANNAH ARENDT