25 Hannah Arendt quotes for you to reflect on society

The most radical revolutionary becomes a conservative the day after the revolution.

Trust in the reality of life, on the contrary, depends almost exclusively on the intensity with which life is experienced, on the impact with which it makes itself felt.

Power is never the property of an individual; belongs to a group and exists only as long as the group holds together.

Power and violence are opposites; where one absolutely dominates, the other is absent.

Plurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, without anyone being exactly the same as anyone who has ever existed, exists or will exist.

If we didn’t force ourselves to keep our promises, we wouldn’t be able to keep our identity; we would be doomed to err, helpless and bewildered.

All pain can be borne if a story can be told about it.

Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to take responsibility for it.

Who inhabits this planet is not man, but men. Plurality is the law of the Earth.

Only goodness must hide itself absolutely and avoid any publicity, otherwise it is destroyed.

Action, insofar as it strives to found and preserve political bodies, creates the condition for remembrance, that is, for history.

The aim of totalitarian education was never to instill convictions, but to destroy the ability to form any.

An existence lived entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes, as we would say, superficial.

Being in solitude means being with yourself, so the act of thinking, while it can be the loneliest of activities, is never fully accomplished without a partner and company.

Conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is part of the essence of educational activity, whose task is always to shelter and protect something.

Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.

The school is by no means the world, nor should it be taken as such; it is rather the institution that stands between the world and the private domain of the home.

A life without thought is entirely possible, but it fails to bring out its own essence – it is not just meaningless; she is not fully alive. Men who don’t think are like sleepwalkers.

The essence of Human Rights is the right to have rights.

Lies have always been considered necessary and legitimate tools, not only of the office of the politician or demagogue, but also of the statesman.

The assumption that a person’s identity transcends, in magnitude and importance, all that he can do or produce is an indispensable element of human dignity.

We live in dark times, where the worst people have lost their fear and the best have lost hope.

In the name of personal interests, many abdicate critical thinking, swallow abuse and smile at those they despise. Giving up thinking is also a crime.

The evil is not in the torturers, but in the clean-handed men who generate a system that allows ordinary men to do things like torture.

Being seen and heard by others is important because everyone sees and hears from different angles. This is the meaning of public life.