Quote

Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.

Hannah Arendt

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Men
Wherever
Matters
Speech
Politics
Relevance
Makes
Stake
Political
Stakes
Become
Definition
Matter
Definitions

More quotes by Hannah Arendt

Image
Psychologically speaking, one may say that the hypocrite is too ambitious not only does he want to appear virtuous before others, he wants to convince himself.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The good things in history are usually of very short duration, but afterward have a decisive influence on what happens over long periods of time.
Hannah Arendt
Image
Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The business of thinking ... undoes every morning what it had finished the night before.
Hannah Arendt
Image
No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.
Hannah Arendt
Image
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
Image
Men always want to be terribly influential, but I see that as somewhat external. Do I imagine myself being influential? No. I want to understand. And if others understand--in the same sense that I have understood--that gives me a sense of satisfaction, like feeling at home.
Hannah Arendt
Image
... the will always wills to do something and thus implicitly holds in contempt sheer thinking, whose whole activity depends on doing nothing.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
Hannah Arendt
Image
We are free to change the world and start something new in it.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The need of reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not the same. The basic fallacy , taking precedence over all specific metaphysical fallacies, is to interpret meaning on the model of truth.
Hannah Arendt
Image
The strength of even the strongest individual can always be overpowered by the many, who often will combine for no other purpose than to ruin strength precisely because of its peculiar independence.
Hannah Arendt
Image
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
Image
It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the ferrets of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won.
Hannah Arendt
Image
What will happen once the authentic mass man takes over, we do not know yet, although it may be a fair guess that he will have more in common with the meticulous, calculated correctness of Himmler than with the hysterical fanaticism of Hitler, will more resemble the stubborn dullness of Molotov than the sensual vindictive cruelty of Stalin.
Hannah Arendt
Image
Evil thrives on apathy and cannot exist without it.
Hannah Arendt
Image
It belongs among the refinements of totalitarian government in our century that they don't permit their opponents to die a great, dramatic martyr's death for their convictions.
Hannah Arendt
Image
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