Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within. – Hannah Arendt
Ideas, as distinguished from events, are never unprecedented. – Hannah Arendt
Poets are the only people to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one. – Hannah Arendt
The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution. – Hannah Arendt
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid. – Denis Diderot