“The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Writing
“Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Spectating
As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Collective Guilt
When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Punishment
No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Love
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.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Life
This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Evil
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Forgiveness
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Thinking
There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.
~ Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on Doing Nothing
“I will admit that there are other people who are primarily interested in doing something. I am not. I can very well live without doing anything. But I cannot live without at least trying to understand whatever happens.”
~ Hannah Arendt, 1972