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... the will always wills to do something and thus implicitly holds in contempt sheer thinking, whose whole activity depends on doing nothing.

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
Something
Holds
Always
Thus
Thinking
Activity
Whose
Implicitly
Depends
Wills
Action
Sheer
Nothing
Thoughtful
Whole
Contempt

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The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed.
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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.
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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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Fear is an emotion indispensable for survival.
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The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man.
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You think that you can judge what's good or evil from whether you enjoy doing it or not. You think that evil is what always appears in the form of a temptation, while good is what you never spontaneously want to do. I think this is all total rubbish, if you don't mind my saying so.
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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.
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Revolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning.
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Ideas, as distinguished from events, are never unprecedented.
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Metaphysical fallacies contain the only clues we have to what thinking means to those who engage in it.
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Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.
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Conscience is the anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home.
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Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.
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To think and to be fully alive are the same.
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It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, because you can remain the friend of the sufferer who would want to be the friend of and have to live together with a murderer? Not even another murderer.
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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.
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I'm completely against [feminism]. I have no desire to give up my privileges.
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where everybody is guilty, nobody is.
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Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.
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Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but antipolitical, perhaps the most powerful of all antipolitical forces.
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