Hannah Arendt
Banality of evil, political theory
Sayings by Hannah Arendt
The right to have rights, or the right of every individual to belong to humanity, should be guaranteed by humanity itself.
The most common form of violence in our society is silence.
The only way to save the world is to change it.
The most dangerous thing in the world is to be anonymous.
The world is not given, but made.
The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be expected from him.
The only way to deal with revolution is to make one.
The most dangerous illusion is that we can escape from politics.
The world is full of things that are not what they seem.
The only way to be truly alive is to be in the world.
The very fact that man is capable of speech is enough to prove that he is not merely an animal.
The human condition is a condition of birth and death.
The most striking particularity of this whole phenomenon of totalitarianism is the extent to which it has been able to mobilize, to organize, and to put into action the sheer force of numbers.
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.
The greatest evil is not radical, but rather is without roots. It is the evil of thoughtlessness.
The problem of evil, as it is presented in the modern world, is not a problem of motivation but a problem of thoughtlessness.
The most potent weapon of the totalitarian regime is not terror, but isolation.
The greatest crimes in history are not committed by 'madmen' but by 'normal' people who simply obey orders.
War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
No one has ever doubted that the Jews suffered. The question is how they suffered, and what the suffering meant.