Quotes from book
On Violence

On Violence

An analysis of the nature, causes, and significance of violence in the second half of the twentieth century. Arendt also reexamines the relationship between war, politics, violence, and power. “Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times”(Nation). Index.


Hannah Arendt photo

“The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.”

"On Violence".
Crises of the Republic (1969)

Hannah Arendt photo
Hannah Arendt photo
Hannah Arendt photo

“In a head-on clash between violence and power, the outcome is hardly in doubt. Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us. Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.”

On the subject violence and power. Source: On Violence, published in 1970. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.

Similar authors

Hannah Arendt photo
Hannah Arendt 85
Jewish-American political theorist 1906–1975
Rosa Luxemburg photo
Rosa Luxemburg 56
Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolut…
Etty Hillesum photo
Etty Hillesum 28
Jewish diarist
Martin Buber photo
Martin Buber 58
German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian
Edith Stein photo
Edith Stein 34
Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher
Walter Benjamin photo
Walter Benjamin 70
German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892…
Elinor Ostrom photo
Elinor Ostrom 4
American political economist
Kenneth Arrow photo
Kenneth Arrow 37
American economist
Simone de Beauvoir photo
Simone de Beauvoir 152
French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, po…
Max Weber photo
Max Weber 41
German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist