The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods. – Hannah Arendt
Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods – Hannah Arendt
Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being. – Hannah Arendt
No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been. – Hannah Arendt
Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices. – H. L. Mencken