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Hannah Arendt Quotes — 10 Quotes by Hannah Arendt

Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous.

Hannah Arendt · The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), ch. 12

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.

Hannah Arendt · The source reads: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” · The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), ch. 13

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

Hannah Arendt · Men in Dark Times (1968), Isak Dinesen

Where all, or almost all, are guilty, nobody is.

Hannah Arendt · Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), epilogue

Bureaucracy, the rule of nobody.

Hannah Arendt · The Human Condition (1958), ch. 6

The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.

Hannah Arendt · The source reads: “It was as though in those last minutes he [Eichmann] was summing up the lessons that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.” · Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), ch. 15

The climax of terror is reached when the police state begins to devour its own children, when yesterday's executioner becomes today's victim.

Hannah Arendt · On Violence (1970)

Hannah Arendt Quotes

Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.

Where all, or almost all, are guilty, nobody is.

Bureaucracy, the rule of nobody.

The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution.

Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.

Depth cannot be reached by man except through remembrance.

The climax of terror is reached when the police state begins to devour its own children, when yesterday's executioner becomes today's victim.

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