Hannah Arendt Quotes on Mind
Hannah Arendt placed the activity of thinking at the centre of her moral and political philosophy, and the quotes gathered here show why. Reflecting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann and on the nature of evil, Arendt concluded that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil, that the failure to think, rather than monstrous intent, lies behind much wrongdoing. She held that thinking is genuinely difficult and even dangerous, far harder than action, and especially so under tyranny, where it is far easier to act than it is to think. Her provocative claim that no one has the right to obey makes critical, independent thought a moral duty rather than a luxury. Drawn from The Life of the Mind and her other works, these passages present thinking as a defence against complicity in evil.
Quotes
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“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
The Life of the Mind (1978), "Thinking -
Attributed to Hannah Arendt:
“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”
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Attributed to Hannah Arendt:
“What makes loneliness so unbearable is the loss of one's own self which can be realized in solitude.”
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“No one has the right to obey . Paradoxical aphorism asserting the responsibility of everyone to engage in critical thinking in response to unjustly oppressive commands or demands against rationality or humanity , implying automatic obedience to tyranny as a betrayal of both, and referencing Immanuel Kant 's philosophical perspectives, in a radio interview with Joachim Fest (9 November 1964); also often rendered as " Niemand hat das Recht zu gehorchen.”
Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen. -
“It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”
The Human Condition(1958) | The Human Condition (1958) -
“The cultural treasures of the past, believed to be dead, are being made to speak, in the course of which it turns out that they propose things altogether different than what had been thought.”
" Martin Heidegger at Eighty," in Heidegger and Modern Philosophy: Critical Essays (1978) by Michael Murray, p. 294