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Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.

Hannah Arendt

A life without thinking is quite possible; it then fails to develop its own essence – it is not merely meaningless; it is not fully alive. Unthinking men are like sleepwalkers
HANNAH ARENDT

Development Failure Life Man Quite Thinking
The language of the mob was only the language of public opinion cleansed of hypocrisy and restraint.
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Language Public
No human life, not even the life of the hermit in nature’s wilderness, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
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Direction Human Life Nature Possible Presence Wild
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
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
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
The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.
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Commitment Evil Greatness Human Person
War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
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Luxury Nation War
The outstanding negative quality of the totalitarian elite is that it never stops to think about the world as it really is and never compares the lies with reality.
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Lie Quality Reality Stop Thinking World
Under the most diverse conditions and disparate circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena—homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth.
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Development Different See
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
To be sure, we are still aware that thinking calls not only for intelligence and profundity but above all for courage.
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Courage Intelligence Thinking
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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Best Crime Excuse Possible
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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Alive Deep Life Metaphor Possible Thinking
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.
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Attraction Best Ideas Ourselves Time Worst
It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven’t done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent.
HANNAH ARENDT

Feeling Quite Wrong

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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Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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