Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.
HANNAH ARENDTTo be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity.
More Hannah Arendt Quotes
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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.
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The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.
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War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
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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 most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
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Wisdom is a virtue of old age, and it seems to come only to those who, when young, were neither wise nor prudent.
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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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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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The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.
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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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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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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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When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.
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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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Men in plural, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and themselves.
HANNAH ARENDT






