Men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin.
HANNAH ARENDTIn 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.
More Hannah Arendt Quotes
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Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality—whatever it may be.
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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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For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.
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Good works, because they must be forgotten instantly, can never become part of the world; they come and go,leaving no trace. They truly are not of this world.
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The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
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The holes of oblivion do not exist. Nothing human is that perfect, and there are simply too many people in the world to make oblivion possible. One man will always be left alive to tell the story.
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What are we “doing” when we do nothing but think? Where are we when we, normally always surrounded by our fellow men, are together with no one but ourselves?
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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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There is no class that cannot be wiped out if a sufficient number of its members are murdered.
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When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.
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Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.
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The only possible metaphor one may conceive of for the life of the mind is the sensation of being alive. Without the breath of life, the human body is a corpse; without thinking, the human mind is dead.
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If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German, not as a world-citizen, not as an upholder of the Rights of Man.
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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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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.
HANNAH ARENDT