Hannah Arendt | Quotes, philosophies and timeless wisdom

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists." Hannah Arendt

"The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any." Hannah Arendt

"Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty." Hannah Arendt

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist." Hannah Arendt

"No one you teach to think can ever obey as before. Not out of a rebellious spirit, but because of the habit of examining all things when in doubt." Hannah Arendt

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness." Hannah Arendt

"Evil thrives on apathy and cannot exist without it." Hannah Arendt

"Thinking does not lead to truth; truth is the beginning of thought." Hannah Arendt

"Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda." Hannah Arendt

"Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil." Hannah Arendt

"Truthfulness has never been counted among the political virtues, and lies have always been regarded as justifiable tools in political dealings." Hannah Arendt

"The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world - and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end - is being destroyed." Hannah Arendt

"The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter." Hannah Arendt

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want. The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any." Hannah Arendt