It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past. Hannah Arendt More Quotes by Hannah Arendt More Quotes From Hannah Arendt No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. Hannah Arendt punishment criminals crime if we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate. Hannah Arendt doomed fate history in addition to the conditions under which life is given to man on earth, and partly out of them, men constantly create their own, self-made conditions, which, their human origins notwithstanding, possess the same conditioning power as natural things. whatever touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life immediately assumes the character of a condition of human existence. this is why men, no matter what they do, are always conditioned beings. whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition. Hannah Arendt self character men Ideologies - isms which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurence by deducing it from a single premise - are a very recent phenomenon ... Not before Hitler and Stalin were the great political potentialities of the ideologies discovered. Hannah Arendt isms political satisfaction The will to power, as the modern age from Hobbes to Nietzsche understood it, far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one. Power corrupts indeed when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before. Hannah Arendt envy strong order Every organization of men, be it social or political, ultimately relies on man's capacity for making promises and keeping them. Hannah Arendt political organization men The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all acts are but different means chosen to arrive at it. Hannah Arendt desire men mean Conscience is the anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home. Hannah Arendt ifs-and anticipation home 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. Hannah Arendt miracle odds law 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. Hannah Arendt freedom successful men Manipulations of opinion, insofar as they are inspired by well-defined interests, have limited goals; their effect, however, if they happen to touch upon an issue of authentic concern, is no longer subject to their control and may easily produce consequences they never foresaw or intended. Hannah Arendt issues goal may The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving. Hannah Arendt redemption forgiving done Every end in history necessarily contains a new beginning. Hannah Arendt new-beginnings ends history It is my contention that civil disobediences are nothing but the latest form of voluntary association, and that they are thus quite in tune with the oldest traditions of the country. Hannah Arendt tunes association country For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and support are the same. Hannah Arendt nursery support nurse 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. Hannah Arendt growth one-day may The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true. Hannah Arendt saws dream The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition. Hannah Arendt quintessence nature earth ... the will always wills to do something and thus implicitly holds in contempt sheer thinking, whose whole activity depends on "doing nothing. Hannah Arendt doing-nothing thoughtful thinking Goodness that comes out of hiding and assumes a public role is no longer good, but corrupt in its own terms and will carry its own corruption wherever it goes. Hannah Arendt assuming corruption roles
