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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

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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Action Battle Desire Power Revolution Violence
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
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Commitment Mistake Reveal
If the ability to tell right from wrong should have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to ‘demand’ its exercise in every sane person no matter how erudite or ignorant.
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Ability Exercise Person Right Wrong
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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Hate Man People Power Reality Tolerance
Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but antipolitical, perhaps the most powerful of all antipolitical forces.
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Force Love Nature Politics Powerful Reason
There is no class that cannot be wiped out if a sufficient number of its members are murdered.
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Death Kill People
The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.
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Dream Perspective True
Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
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Act Easy Thinking
To be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity.
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Road Sanity
The language of the mob was only the language of public opinion cleansed of hypocrisy and restraint.
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Language Public
Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.
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Absence Power Violence
For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same.
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Nation Politics Support
Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians – we call them children.
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Children Nation
War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
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Luxury Nation War
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.
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Easy Effort World
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

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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