Hannah Arendt Quotes About Opinions

Quotes about: Opinions

• I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help.

  Hannah Arendt

  Running, Risk, Today

  Hannah Arendt (2000). “The Portable Hannah Arendt”, Penguin Group USA

• It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possess neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth and can be radical.

  Hannah Arendt

  Roots, Evil, Frustrated

  Hannah Arendt (2000). “The Portable Hannah Arendt”, Penguin Group USA

• If the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to "demand" its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be. Kant in this respect almost alone among the philosophers was much bothered by the common opinion that philosophy is only for the few, precisely because of its moral implications.

  Hannah Arendt

  Stupid, Philosophy, Exercise

  "The Life of the Mind". Book by Hannah Arendt, p. 13, 1978.

• Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods -moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former -but no opinion.

  Hannah Arendt

  Opportunity, Fickle, May

• Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.

  Hannah Arendt

  Responsibility, Keys, Effort

  Hannah Arendt (1973). “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.53, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Manipulations of opinion, insofar as they are inspired by well-defined interests, have limited goals; their effect, however, if they happen to touch upon an issue of authentic concern, is no longer subject to their control and may easily produce consequences they never foresaw or intended.

  Hannah Arendt

  Issues, Goal, May

  Hannah Arendt (2006). “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”, p.246, Penguin

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