“Life may contain the "essence" (what else could?); recollection, the repetition in imagination, may decipher the essence and deliver to you the "elixir"; and eventually you may even be privileged to "make" something out of it, "to compound the story." But life itself is neither essence nor elixir, and if you treat as such it will only play its tricks on you.”

Source: Men in Dark Times

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Life may contain the "essence" (what else could?); recollection, the repetition in imagination, may decipher the essenc…" by Hannah Arendt?
Hannah Arendt photo
Hannah Arendt 85
Jewish-American political theorist 1906–1975

Related quotes

Reinhold Niebuhr photo
Socrates photo
Prem Rawat photo

“Love — this is the essence of life. But you will not give your life to another.”

Ruslana Koršunova (1987–2008) fashion model

"Model's Web rants pined for love" in Daily News (29 June 2009)

Isaiah Berlin photo

“But to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you — the social reformer — see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.”

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas

Five Essays on Liberty (2002), Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)

Martin Heidegger photo
Jane Roberts photo

“Anyone who tries to sell you the elixir of life in the form of a perfect society - is your enemy - the enemy of your humanity.”

http://www.qern.org/ur/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%B2%D9%86%D8%AF%DB%81-%DB%81%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A7-%DB%81%DB%92-%DB%81%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%84%D8%A7-%DA%A9%DB%92-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF/
Describing some Muslim preachers who try to sell the utopia of a perfect Islamic society.

Raúl González photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“Farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

20 August 1833
Table Talk (1821–1834)

Related topics