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The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.

Hannah Arendt

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Hannah Arendt
Age: 69 †
Born: 1906
Born: October 14
Died: 1975
Died: December 4
Author
Essayist
Historian
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Political Theorist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Hanover
Germany
Johanna Hannah Arendt
Johanna Hannah Cohn Arendt
Hannah Arendt Bluecher
Hanna Arendt
Johanna Arendt
Mind
Atheism
Make
Minds
Good
Peace
Never
Evil
People
Inspirational
Truth
Character
Emo
Done
Triumph

More quotes by Hannah Arendt

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To think and to be fully alive are the same.
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It interrupts any doing, any ordinary activities, no matter what they happen to be. All thinking demands a stop-and-think.
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Even though we have lost yardsticks by which to measure, and rules under which to subsume the particular, a being whose essence is a beginning may have enough of origin within himself to understand without preconceived categories and to judge without the set of customary rules which is morality.
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The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality.
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Kant ... was also quite aware that the urgent need of reason is both different from and more than mere quest and desire for knowledge. Hence, the distinguishing of the two faculties, reason and intellect, coincides with a distinction between two altogether different mental activities, thinking and knowing.
Hannah Arendt
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Plurality of languages: [...] It is crucial 1. that there are many languages and that they differ not only in vocabulary, but also in grammar, and so in mode of thought and 2. that all languages are learnable.
Hannah Arendt
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It is in the nature of a group and its power to turn against independence, the property of individual strength.
Hannah Arendt
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the rule of Nobody ... is what the political form known as bureaucracy truly is.
Hannah Arendt
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Violence can always destroy power out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.
Hannah Arendt
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Goodness that comes out of hiding and assumes a public role is no longer good, but corrupt in its own terms and will carry its own corruption wherever it goes.
Hannah Arendt
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Absence of thought is indeed a powerful factor in human affairs, statistically speaking the most powerful, not just in the conduct of the many but in the conduct of all.
Hannah Arendt
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... the space left to freedom is very small.ends are inherent in human nature and the same for all.
Hannah Arendt
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The concept of unlimited expansion that alone can fulfill the hope for unlimited accumulation of capital, and brings about the aimless accumulation of power, makes the foundation of new political bodies - which up to the era of imperialism always had been the upshot of conquest - well-nigh impossible.
Hannah Arendt
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We are free to change the world and start something new in it.
Hannah Arendt
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Metaphysical fallacies contain the only clues we have to what thinking means to those who engage in it.
Hannah Arendt
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Mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence . . . the science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe which are concealed by appearances.
Hannah Arendt
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Conscience is the anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home.
Hannah Arendt
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Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.
Hannah Arendt
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Legitimacy, when challenged, bases itself on an appeal to the past, while justification relates to an end that lies in the future. Violence can be justifiable, but it never will be legitimate.
Hannah Arendt
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Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, and lies have always been regarded as justifiable tools in political dealings.
Hannah Arendt