Hannah Arendt Quotes About Acting
-
The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility──of being unable to undo what one has done──is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.
→ -
Political institutions, no matter how well or badly designed, depend for continued existence upon acting men; their conservation is achieved by the same means that brought them into being. Independent existence marks the work of art as a product of making; utter dependence upon further acts to keep it in existence marks the state as a product of action.
→ -
Jefferson, though the secret vote was still unknown at the time had at least a foreboding of how dangerous it might be to allow the people to share a public power without providing them at the same time with more public space than the ballot box and with more opportunity to make their voices heard in public than on election day. What he perceived to be the mortal danger to the republic was that the Constitution had given all power to the citizens, without giving them the opportunity of being citizens and of acting as citizens.
→ -
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
→
Related Authors
-
Theodor Adorno Sociologist -
Simone de Beauvoir Writer -
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Philosopher -
Walter Benjamin Literary critic -
Friedrich Nietzsche Philologist -
-
Emmanuel Levinas Philosopher -
Martin Heidegger Philosopher -
Immanuel Kant Philosopher -
Mary McCarthy Author -
Karl Popper Philosopher -
Carl Schmitt Philosopher -
Karl Marx Philosopher -
Jean-Paul Sartre Philosopher -
Maurice Merleau-Ponty Philosopher -
Jurgen Habermas Philosopher -
Karl Jaspers Psychiatrist -
Jacques Derrida Philosopher -
Giorgio Agamben Philosopher -
Michel Foucault Philosopher