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We first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others, not in the intercourse with ourselves.

Hannah Arendt

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.
HANNAH ARENDT

Absence Power Violence
Courage is indispensible because in politics not life but the world is at stake.
HANNAH ARENDT

Courage Life Politics
When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.
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Old Philosophy Truth
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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Oneself Right World
As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.
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Live Suffering World Wrong
To be sure, we are still aware that thinking calls not only for intelligence and profundity but above all for courage.
HANNAH ARENDT

Courage Intelligence Thinking
Compared with the mobilization of all opponents to the government as such, the capturing of lower middle-class votes was a temporary phenomenon.
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Government Politics
Social and economic hatred, on the other hand, reinforced the political argument with that driving violence which up to then it had lacked completely.
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Hands Hate Politics Violence
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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Commitment Evil Need Religious
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
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Evil Goodness Mindset People Sad Truth
The crime of the Nuremberg Laws was a national crime; it violated national, constitutional rights and liberties, but it was of no concern to the comity of nations.
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Crime Liberty Nation Violence
Evil comes from a failure to think.
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Evil Failure Thinking
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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Alive Existence History Human Man Perfection
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
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
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Action Forgiveness Freedom
The point is that both Hitler and Stalin held out promises of stability in order to hide their intention of creating a state of permanent instability.
HANNAH ARENDT

Creation Hide Promise

We first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others, not in the intercourse with ourselves.

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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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Popular Authors

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