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Hannah Arendt

Quote of Hannah Arendt - If everybody always lies to you...


Biography - Hannah Arendt:

German-born American political theorist.
Born: 1906 - Died: 1975
Period:
20th century
Place of birth: Germany
Germany

If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer... And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.



Translation

Translation

(French)



French
Quand tout le monde vous ment en permanence, le résultat n'est pas que vous croyez ces mensonges mais que plus personne ne croit plus rien... Un peuple qui ne peut plus rien croire ne peut se faire une opinion. Il est privé non seulement de sa capacité d'agir mais aussi de sa capacité de penser et de juger. Et avec un tel peuple, vous pouvez faire ce que vous voulez.




See also 

See also...



The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.

Truth prevails only to the extent that we successfully assert it. The victory of reason can only be the victory of rational people.




Quotes for: to think


Quotes

Quotes for: to think


A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.





Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.





Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.





Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.





I think, therefore I am.





For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.











Quotes for: lie


Quotes

Quotes about lie:


Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.





The first and fundamental resistance is that of the spirit. It means resisting the intimidation of any lie asserted as truth, the contagion of any collective intoxication.





Art is the most beautiful of all lies.





Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup.





Success has always been a great liar.





The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth.











Quotes for: judgement


Quotes

Quotes for: judgement


Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.





True artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.





Haste in judgement is to look for guilt.





A judgment can be refuted, but never a prejudice.





It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.





Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.











Quotes

Hannah Arendt also said...


Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.





Action, with all its uncertainties, is like an ever-present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in order to die, but to begin something new.





Finding the right words at the right moment is action.





The best of all will be those who know only one thing for certain: that whatever else happens, as long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves.





Unthinking people are like sleepwalkers.





What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing.












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