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It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy, our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then became objects of our desires.

Hannah Arendt

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.
HANNAH ARENDT

Hate Man People Power Reality Tolerance
Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.
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Act Action Possible
The language of the mob was only the language of public opinion cleansed of hypocrisy and restraint.
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Language Public
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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Desire Enjoyment Loss
Hitlerism exercised its strong international and inter-European appeal during the thirties because racism, although a state doctrine only in Germany, had been a powerful trend in public opinion everywhere.
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Opinion Powerful Race
The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.
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Dream Perspective True
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.
HANNAH ARENDT

Greatness Oneself
We first become aware of freedom or its opposite in our intercourse with others, not in the intercourse with ourselves.
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Freedom Ourselves
To be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity.
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Road Sanity
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
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
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Change Revolution
Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it—the quality of temptation.
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Evil Lost Quality
For legends attract the very best in our times, just as ideologies attract the average, and the whispered tales of gruesome secret powers behind the scenes attract the very worst.
HANNAH ARENDT

Attraction Best Ideas Ourselves Time Worst
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.
HANNAH ARENDT

Alive Deep Life Metaphor Possible Thinking
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.
HANNAH ARENDT

Beginning Born Freedom Identify Man Philosophy
What we usually call life is death, what we usually call death is life.
HANNAH ARENDT

Death Deep Life Philosophy

It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy, our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then became objects of our desires.

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It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy, our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then became objects of our desires.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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