Hannah Arendt Quotes

Anyone who claims to have an entirely clear conscience is almost certainly a bore.

I am suspicious of guilt in myself and in other people; it is usually a way of not thinking, or of announcing one's own fine sensibilities the better to be rid of them fast.

I'm always suspicious of people who repent of other people's sins.

Every contrition for sin is apt to encourage a not quite charitable wish that other people should exhibit a similar contrition.

Am I self-righteous? Why not? It's not like I can count on you to be righteous for me.

Sinners think they are saints, but saints know they are sinners.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.

Few love to hear the sins they love to act.

Human beings have the incredible capacity for denial. I think they do. And although it's really hard to believe, I have my doubts. But my feeling is that first they have to convince themselves. First they have to justify this stuff to themselves and if they can do that, even for just the moment that it's coming out their mouth, then they can kind of mouth it with kind of believable sincerity, even if some of us.

Psychologically speaking, one may say that the hypocrite is too ambitious; not only does he want to appear virtuous before others, he wants to convince himself.

I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality. . . asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me.

We are never more self-righteous than when giving up what we should have shunned all along.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

Oh, how horrible our sins look when they are committed by someone else.

When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.

Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others.

Let us beware of repentance without evidence.

Self-righteousness is unavoidable. You can either be a self-righteous Pharisee where you think you are better than everyone else or you can be a self-righteous pagan who thinks you are better than the Pharisee. If you are a self-righteous person, I could become very self-righteous thinking that you're self-righteous and you think you're so good but I know you're bad. I know I'm bad so that makes me better than you.

Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.

Cheap thrill: moral outrage revels in its own innocence and in the guilt of the wicked Others.

A man--poet, prophet, or whatever be may be--readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered.

We never ask God to forgive anybody except when we haven't.

moral vanity is the snare of good people.

I've heard lots of people lie to themselves but they never fool anyone.