Hannah Arendt Quotes

When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.

2623

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.

1208

The common prejudice that love is as common as "romance" may be due to the fact that we all learned about it first through poetry. But the poets fool us; they are the only ones to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one.

4622

The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.

1071

Courage is indispensible because in politics not life but the world is at stake.

3900

Since the end of human action, as distinct from the end products of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted, the means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals.

4534

Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.

2640

Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen.

1515

To sum up: politically speaking, it is insufficient to say that power and violence are not the same. Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.

4663