Hannah Arendt Quotes

This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.

The issues of the choice between right and wrong has to be an ongoing concern for everybody, at every age. There is no magical point in a human life when anyone is or becomes immune to the second-by-second choice to do right instead of wrong.

There is no morality by instinct. There is no social salvation in the end without taking thought; without mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

To be moral involves taking a position towards that matrix, thinking critically about what is taken for granted.

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.

If education is to develop human nature so that it may attain the object of its being, it must involve the exercise of judgment.

Compassion without wisdom is dangerous. It's what enables people to support the 'underdog,' even if the underdog is evil

The only kind of trouble I've ever been in is when I was stealing eggs when I was little. I think I know right from wrong.

We cannot freely and wisely choose the right way for ourselves unless we know both good and evil.

A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life.

There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior.

I like moral judgment to emerge from the reader. We are being sold a very simplistic morality by our leaders at a time when nuance and understanding are at a premium.

Students should learn about the long-standing values of truth, beauty, and goodness, think hard about them, and interrogate them skillfully.

More important than your obligation to follow your conscience, or at least prior to it, is your obligation to form your conscience correctly.

Casting judgments is an integral feature of what makes us human.

In matters of conscience that is the best sense which every wise man takes in before he hath sullied his understanding with the designs of sophisters and interested persons.

There are two methods of human activity - and according to which one of these two kinds of activity people mainly follow, are there two kinds of people: One use their reason to learn what is good and what is bad and they act according to this knowledge; the other act as they want to and then they use their reason to prove that that which they did was good and that which they didn't do was bad.

To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.

I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn't teach you that at school.' Rose didn't answer; the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods--Good and Evil.

If teaching has any purpose, it is to implant true insight and responsibility. Education must lead us from irresponsible opinion to true responsible judgement. It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order.

The only things that separates us from the brute, with which we have so much in common, is the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong.

The feeling of right or wrong is the beginning of wisdom.

An education which does not teach us to discriminate between good and bad, to assimilate the one and eschew the other, is a misnomer