Arendt, Hannah

"Language has become so degraded that we are losing the ability to understand."

"The greatest evil perpetrated is often done by nobodies, ordinary men and women simply obeying orders."

"Plurality is the law of the earth and the basis of human society."

"Work is the most human of activities; it is by working that we shape the world."

"The danger of totalitarianism is that it tries to make people identical, destroying human plurality."

"We cannot escape natality; we are always already thrown into a world not of our making."

"Lying has become a way of life in politics; truth is now the exception."

"The spectacle of suffering is the product of a world that has lost its capacity for compassion."

"Only those who have experienced humiliation know its power to destroy the soul."

"Education is not the instrument to teach people how to get on, but how to get along."

"The laborer remains bound to the cycle of life; he never escapes necessity."

"Memory is the only continuity we have in a world of perpetual change."

"The capacity to think is threatened by mass society and the demand for conformity."

"Every historical catastrophe is preceded by a failure of imagination."

"Authority is not the same as power; it must be freely acknowledged."

"The lonely crowd is the great danger of modern democracy."

"Totalitarian terror aims at the destruction of the human capacity for judgment."

"Action without speech is not fully human; we must be able to justify our deeds."

"The private realm is where we are born; the public realm is where we become human."

"Bureaucracy is the rule of nobody, which is the most terrible rule of all."

"Understanding the past is not the same as being imprisoned by it."

"The banality of evil teaches us that ordinary people can commit extraordinary atrocities."

"Freedom of thought requires solitude and distance from the crowd."

"Love is not a political virtue; it cannot be systematized or enforced."

"The human world is created by action and speech; without them, there is only nature."

"Propaganda works by repetition and the suppression of alternative voices."

"We are responsible not only for what we do but for what we fail to do."

"The refugee is the symbol of the modern world's failure of compassion."

"Thinking without a banister means thinking without the support of tradition."

"The distinction between public and private is being eroded by the social sphere."