The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter. Hannah Arendt More Quotes by Hannah Arendt More Quotes From Hannah Arendt Imperialism was born when the ruling class in capitalist production came up against national limits to its economic expansion. Hannah Arendt expansion limits class Philosophy is called upon to compensate for the frustrations of politics and, more generally, of life itself. Hannah Arendt frustration philosophy For the lesson of such stories [of resistance to Nazi atrocities] is simple and within everybody's grasp. Politically speaking, it is that under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that "it could happen" in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation. Hannah Arendt simple country people Mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence . . . the science of sciences, delivering the key to those laws of nature and the universe which are concealed by appearances. Hannah Arendt nature keys law There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience's taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will. Hannah Arendt ill-will eye hands Men, forever tempted to lift the veil of the future-with the aid of computers or horoscopes or the intestines of sacrificial animals-have a worse record to show in these sciences than in almost any scientific endeavor. Hannah Arendt astrology animal men It is obvious: if you do not accept something that assumes the form of ‘destiny,’ you not only change its ‘natural laws’ but also the laws of the enemy playing the role of fate. Hannah Arendt fate destiny law Immortality is what nature possesses without effort and without anybody's assistance, and immortality is what the mortals must therefore try to achieve if they want to live up to the world into which they were born, to live up to the things which surround them and to whose company they are admitted for a short while. Hannah Arendt effort trying world The saving grace of all really great gifts is that the persons who bear their burden remain superior to what they have done, at least as long as the source of creativity is alive. Hannah Arendt creativity grace long Metaphysical fallacies contain the only clues we have to what thinking means to those who engage in it. Hannah Arendt clue mean thinking The good things in history are usually of very short duration, but afterward have a decisive influence on what happens over long periods of time. Hannah Arendt duration long history We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance. Hannah Arendt excess common life Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx. Hannah Arendt plato teaching believe Violence is an expression of impotence. Hannah Arendt impotence violence expression If men were ever to lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking, they would lose the capacity for asking all the unanswerable questions upon which every civilization is founded. Hannah Arendt men civilization thinking It is a secret from nobody that the famous random event is most likely to arise from those parts of the world where the old adage"There is no alternative to victory" retains a high degree of plausibility. Hannah Arendt victory events secret The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into theheritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony--unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe's declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty. Hannah Arendt political government europe ... we may remember what the Romansthought a cultivated person ought to be: one who knows how to choose his company among men, among things, among thoughts, in the present as well as in the past. Hannah Arendt may men past ... the space left to freedom is very small.ends are inherent in human nature and the same for all. Hannah Arendt human-nature freedom space It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the ferrets of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won. Hannah Arendt automation freedom meaningful
