Arendt, Hannah

"The capacity to begin something new is what makes us human and keeps us from being merely animal."

"In times of crisis, it is not our survival instincts but our capacity to act freely that defines us."

"Beauty exists not because the world is beautiful but because we have the capacity to perceive it as such."

"The public realm is where we achieve immortality through our words and deeds."

"Imagination is more important than facts, for facts are merely the past while imagination shapes the future."

"The greatest injustice is not to be punished for wrongdoing but to be ignored by society."

"We are defined not by our birth but by our capacity to act in the world."

"The problem with obedience is that it requires the abdication of thought."

"Social mobility without genuine equality is merely rearranging the furniture on the Titanic."

"The most dangerous moment in any revolution is when power passes to those who made the revolution."

"To understand history is to understand that the present is not inevitable."

"Natality is the miracle that saves the world, the fact that we are born, that the new enters the world."

"The death of the public realm means the death of human action in its truest sense."

"We inherit a world not made by us and must leave one not entirely of our making."

"Lies are always more plausible than truth because they are designed to appeal to our desires."

"The greatest threat to freedom is not tyranny but apathy."

"In the age of mass production, even thoughts have become standardized."

"Patriotism is not love of country; it is love of country as an idea."

"The worst that can happen is not failure but the failure to attempt anything at all."

"We are all refugees in the modern world, displaced from tradition and home."

"The role of the intellectual is to keep alive the memory of what others wish to forget."

"Time is not a line but a web of interconnected moments."

"The capacity to sympathize is not the same as the capacity to understand."

"Progress is not inevitable; it requires constant effort and vigilance."

"Love without justice is sentimentality; justice without love is tyranny."

"The young are the only ones who can truly change the world because they are not yet bound by the past."

"In the darkness, it is memory that keeps us human."

"The ability to think is the ability to question."

"We must never underestimate the power of ordinary people to do extraordinary things."

"The greatest danger in our time is the reduction of human beings to functions."