Hannah Arendt's most famous quotes
The top 3 according to 39 votes from people: The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil. · The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, but terribly and terrifyingly normal. · The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs out of men.. (Updated Apr 15, 2021.)
The banality of evil, the ideal subject of totalitarian rule and the revolutionary who turns conservative the day after: Hannah Arendt's most quoted lines, from The Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem and The Life of the Mind.
Automatically translated (original in Español). See the original
Top 12
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1
The fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), on Eichmann's last words.
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2
The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, but terribly and terrifyingly normal.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), epilogue.
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3
The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs out of men.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963).
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4
Once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), epilogue.
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5
Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.
Men in Dark Times (1968).
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6
He was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), chapter III, on Eichmann.
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7
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or Communist, but people for whom fact and fiction no longer differ…
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951).
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8
The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.
The Life of the Mind (1978), 'Thinking'.
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9
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
The New Yorker, 12 September 1970.
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10
Under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), chapter XIV.
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11
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
Attributed: found in a 1989 dictionary of quotations, without the exact work.
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12
Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.
On Violence (1970).
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Comments (1)
Lo de la banalidad del mal lo leí en la carrera y me cambió la forma de ver las noticias. Muy recomendable Eichmann en Jerusalén, se lee mejor de lo que parece.