Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt

Johanna "Hannah" Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world." Arendt's work deals with the nature of power, and the subjects of politics, authority, and totalitarianism.

Read more about Hannah Arendt:  Life and Career, Works, Legacy, Commemoration, Selected Works

Famous quotes by hannah arendt:

    It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    These are the fifties, you know. The disgusting, posturing fifties.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    Power corrupts ... when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before. The will to power ... far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    ... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    Immortality is what nature possesses without effort and without anybody’s assistance, and immortality is what the mortals must therefore try to achieve if they want to live up to the world into which they were born, to live up to the things which surround them and to whose company they are admitted for a short while.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)