German - Historian | October 14, 1906 - December 4, 1975
Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up.
Hannah Arendt
PowerKnowStreetLyingUpWho
Where 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.
BestDoingGuiltDiscoveryGuilty
By its very nature the beautiful is isolated from everything else. From beauty no road leads to reality.
NatureBeautyBeautifulRoadReality
The chief qualification of a mass leader has become unending infallibility; he can never admit an error.
LeaderAdmitBecomeNeverErrorHe
Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed in words that equal what is given by the senses.
WordsNothingTouchEqualSenses
Death not merely ends life, it also bestows upon it a silent completeness, snatched from the hazardous flux to which all things human are subject.
LifeDeathSilentHumanThingsEnds
Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise.
LoyaltyMindPossibleChangesOnly
In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.
DeathGoEscapeLivingTryOrder
The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution.
ReputationRevolutionViolenceBecome
Culture relates to objects and is a phenomenon of the world; entertainment relates to people and is a phenomenon of life.
LifeCulturePeopleWorldObjects
No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.
PowerTimeEnoughCrimePunishment
The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.
NewEverydayOddsCertaintyMiracle
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Hannah Arendt quotes