Hannah Arendt Quotes

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

all conscious thought is a process in time; so that to think consciously about Time is like trying to use a foot-rule to measure its own length.

These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave.

If there is a new fascism, it won't come from skinheads and punks; it will come from people who eat granola and think they know how the world should be.

When I was twelve, I was interviewed by a doctoral candidate in education and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said that I either wanted to be a philosopher or a clown, and I understood then, I think, that much depended on whether or not I found the world worth philosophizing about, and what the price of seriousness might be.

At first it seems obvious, but the more you think about it the stranger the deductions from this axiom seem to become; in the end you cease to understand what is meant by it.

Only when one thinks even much more madly than the philosophers can one solve their problems.

As a kid you learn that there are thinkers and there are philosophers and there are theologian, and I'd hear little bits of the ideas that these people pursued or developed or created and I'd be really excited. Then I'll start to read it and I think, "Wait a minute, this is a rabbit hole. This isn't a gateway or a ticket to anything except itself."

It's so interesting that we think we know the rules to this game, this total hypothetical game called, "Would you," "If you had it to do over." It's not out there.

The visible world was only an imperfect reflection of the Ideal, which the Philosopher sought to transcend.

One of the most difficult tasks confronting philosophers is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world.

The world is full of burled and gnarly knobs on which you can hang a metaphysical system. If you must.

Many people think that we have no shared value system in the world today but we actually do.

With a little luck that epoch may arrive. I am on the side of those who think that things will go better when the world has changed.

I think the Internet has changed the world.

And as well as I dream, I reason if I want, for that's just another kind of dream.

I think human beings are almost, by definition, religious people,in the sense that we ask questions of meaning, we anticipate future events, we deal with the issues of mortality from the first time we see a dead bird as a little child.

So," says Lev, as casually as he can, "you wanna dance?" "Do you believe in the end of the world?" she responds. Lev shrugs. "I don't know. Why?" "Because the day after that is when I'll dance with you.

I think you can't deny that because the cochlear implant exists, the signing world is shrinking.

I don't think I'm craving any more fame. But success and being recognized for making great work all around the world, I think it's a great thing.

Why ... did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions -- not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

In drawing, I often think of things as flying buttresses.

Fundamentally, as human beings, we're very, very alike and a lot more alike than we think, but we have a tendency to divide the world into them and us. In prison, when people commit a crime and we put them away, they definitely become "them." We don't want to deal with it because they have chosen to step out of society, so we're going to keep them out. Even if they serve their time, we're going to make sure that, for the rest of their lives, they're going to be branded. I don't know how to do it in a different way, but I think it clearly doesn't work.

I sell ideas. Actually, if you think about it, everything is really no more than idea. The past is nothing more than a memory, which is one kind of idea. The future is still a hope, another kind of idea. The present is fleeting and becomes a memory before you can put your hands on it. All ideas. I sell ideas.

Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?