Hannah Arendt Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Violence is an expression of impotence.

  Hannah Arendt

  Expression, Violence, Impotence

  16 Copy quote

• Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable.

  Hannah Arendt

  Responsibility, Would Be, World

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Between past and future: eight exercises in political thought”, Viking Adult

  79 Copy quote

• Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.

  Hannah Arendt

  Peace, Mean, Peculiar

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Totalitarianism: Part Three of The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.47, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  53 Copy quote

• I'm completely against [feminism]. I have no desire to give up my privileges.

  Hannah Arendt

  Giving Up, Feminism, Desire

  51 Copy quote

• There always comes a point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive. This point is reached when the audience to which the lies are addressed is forced to disregard altogether the distinguishing line between truth and falsehood in order to be able to survive.

  Hannah Arendt

  Lying, Order, Lines

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  22 Copy quote

• 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

  Momentum, Language, Propaganda

  Hannah Arendt (1968). “Totalitarianism: Part Three of The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  49 Copy quote

• I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help.

  Hannah Arendt

  Running, Risk, Today

  Hannah Arendt (2000). “The Portable Hannah Arendt”, Penguin Group USA

  71 Copy quote

• Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.

  Hannah Arendt

  Reality, Expression, Adherence

  Hannah Arendt (1981). “The Life of the Mind”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  59 Copy quote

• Bureaucracy, the rule of nobody.

  Hannah Arendt

  Bureaucracy

  The Human Condition ch. 6 (1958)

  16 Copy quote

• There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.

  Hannah Arendt

  Memorable, Thinking, Atheism

  Hannah Arendt (1981). “The Life of the Mind”, p.192, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  93 Copy quote

• Thinking does not lead to truth; truth is the beginning of thought.

  Hannah Arendt

  Thinking, Doe, Truth Is

  18 Copy quote

• One must think with the body and the soul or not think at all.

  Hannah Arendt

  Thinking, Soul, Body

  18 Copy quote

• the public sphere is as consistently based on the law of equality as the private sphere is based on the law of universal difference and differentiation. Equality, in contrast to all that is involved in mere existence, is not given us, but is the result of human organization insofar as it is guided by the principle of justice. We are not born equal; we become equal as members of a group on the strength of our decision to guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights.

  Hannah Arendt

  Equality, Rights, Law

  Hannah Arendt (1973). “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.345, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  97 Copy quote

• Rage is by no means an automatic reaction to misery and suffering as such; no one reacts with rage to an incurable disease or to an earthquake or, for that matter, to social conditions that seem to be unchangeable. Only where there is reason to suspect that conditions could be changed and are not does rage arise.

  Hannah Arendt

  Anger, Mean, Earthquakes

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.170, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  49 Copy quote

• The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world.

  Hannah Arendt

  War, Practice, World

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.86, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  61 Copy quote

• In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.

  Hannah Arendt

  Order, Trying, Goes On

  41 Copy quote

• Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up.

  Hannah Arendt

  Lying, Revolution, Action

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.216, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  83 Copy quote

• The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

  Hannah Arendt

  Memorable, Political Revolution, Revolutionary Leaders

  New Yorker 12 Sept. 1970, p. 88

  51 Copy quote

• All political institutions are manifestations and materializations of power; they petrify and decay as soon as the living power of the people ceases to uphold them.

  Hannah Arendt

  Power, People, Political

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.150, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  44 Copy quote

• Although tyranny...may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.

  Hannah Arendt

  Peace, War, People

  33 Copy quote

• Generally speaking, violence always arises out of impotence. It is the hope of those who have no power.

  Hannah Arendt

  Violence, Arise, Impotence

  18 Copy quote

• Equality...is the result of human organization. We are not born equal.

  Hannah Arendt

  Equality, Organization, Born

  22 Copy quote

• The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.

  Hannah Arendt

  Liars, Lying, Wish

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.41, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  57 Copy quote

• Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is 'in power' we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with ... disappears, 'his power' also vanishes.

  Hannah Arendt

  Power, Names, Numbers

  Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  29 Copy quote

• The history of humanity is not a hotel where someone can rent a room whenever it suits him; nor is it a vehicle which we board or get out of at random. Our past will be for us a burden beneath which we can only collapse for as long as we refuse to understand the present and fight for a better future. Only then — but from that moment on — will the burden become a blessing, that is, a weapon in the battle for freedom.

  Hannah Arendt

  Fighting, Blessing, Past

  "The Jewish Writings".

  68 Copy quote

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