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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

— Hannah Arendt The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

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More quotes by Hannah Arendt

In its flight from death, the craving for permanence clings to the very things sure to be lost in death.

Love and Saint Augustine (1929)

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

The Life of the Mind (1978)

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

Men in Dark Times (1968)

Persecution of powerless or power-losing groups may not be a very pleasant spectacle, but it does not spring from human meanness alone.

The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

The Human Condition (1958)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Hannah Arendt (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.