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:

    The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of ‘living well,’ which all men desire; all acts are but different means chosen to arrive at it.
    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)

    Our Last Will and Testament, providing for the only future of which we can be reasonably certain, namely our own death, shows that the Will’s need to will is no less strong than Reason’s need to think; in both instances the mind transcends its own natural limitations, either by asking unanswerable questions or by projecting itself into a future which, for the willing subject, will never be.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    ... we may remember what the Romans ... thought a cultivated person ought to be: one who knows how to choose his company among men, among things, among thoughts, in the present as well as in the past.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)