Hannah Arendt — Quote from The Human Condition
“The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, 'natural' ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted.”
The Human Condition (1958)
Concepts: agency, meaning, freedom
Resonant Quotes
- “To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world ...” — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed Both ground human renewal in our capacity to begin anew, where Freire's continuous re-naming exemplifies Arendt's nat...
- “Liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The man or woman who emer...” — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed Both authors ground transformative possibility in the metaphor of birth — Arendt's 'natality' as the ontological basi...
- “For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty ov...” — Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Both locate salvation from natural decay in distinctly human capacities—Mann in love's defiance of death's dominion, ...
- “Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” — Simone de Beauvoir, All Said and Done Both philosophers locate human potential in the capacity for immediate, transformative action—de Beauvoir's existenti...
- “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is ...” — Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali Tagore's vision of collective awakening and Arendt's miracle of natality both ground political renewal in humanity's ...
- “Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity re...” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create Both ground human dignity in the capacity to initiate something genuinely new—Arendt's political natality and May's c...
- “He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” — Günter Grass, The Tin Drum The destruction of books represents an assault on the very faculty of action that Arendt identifies as humanity's sav...
- “The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Ev...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Both philosophers reject nihilistic conclusions from meaninglessness, with Camus maintaining ethical constraints with...