“Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?”

— Hannah Arendt, book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1971/1978), p. 5.

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Jewish-American political theorist 1906–1975

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“Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?”

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