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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

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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
Masses
Attracted
Propaganda
Mass
Language
Totalitarianism
Elite
Momentum
Elites

More quotes by 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.
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Equality...is the result of human organization. We are not born equal.
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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.
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Fear is an emotion indispensable for survival.
Hannah Arendt
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the insight that peace is the end of war, and that therefore a war is the preparation for peace, is at least as old as Aristotle, and the pretense that the aim of an armament race is to guard the peace is even older, namely as old as the discovery of propaganda lies.
Hannah Arendt
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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
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Luck serves ... as rationalization for every people that is not master of its own destiny.
Hannah Arendt
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When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.
Hannah Arendt
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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.
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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.
Hannah Arendt
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Courage is indispensible because in politics not life but the world is at stake.
Hannah Arendt
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Scientific and philosophic truth have parted company.
Hannah Arendt
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The saving grace of all really great gifts is that the persons who bear their burden remain superior to what they have done, at least as long as the source of creativity is alive.
Hannah Arendt
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I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi .
Hannah Arendt
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Nobody is the author or producer of his own life story ... somebody began it and is its subject in the twofold sense, namely, its actor and sufferer ... but nobody is the author.
Hannah Arendt
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His [Marx's] most explosive and indeed most original contribution to the cause of revolution was that he interpreted the compelling needs of mass poverty in political terms as an uprising, not for the sake of bread or wealth, but for the sake of freedom as well.
Hannah Arendt
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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.
Hannah Arendt
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There is a strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil.
Hannah Arendt
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[About Eichmann:] It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us - the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.
Hannah Arendt
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Power is actualized only when word and deed have not parted company.
Hannah Arendt