Hannah Arendt Quotes

We can only know others by ourselves.

Literally, no man ever sees himself as others see him. No photograph or reflection ever gives us the same slant on ourselves that others see. It has often been proved on the witness stand that no two people ever see the same accident precisely the same way. We see through different eyes and from different angles. But if we could see things as other people see them, we could come closer to knowing why they do what they do and why they say what they say.

People can portray me anyway they want because I don’t give a damn… But don’t you analyze me and don’t you tell me what I am until you get close enough to understand what I am. Then you can make an analysis of me. But don’t you dare do it until then.

My stepfather, John O'Hara, was the goodest man there was. He was not a man of many words, but of carefully chosen ones. He was the one parent who didn't try to fix me. One night I sat on his lap in his chair by the wood stove, sobbing. He just held me quietly and then asked only, "What does it feel like?" It was the first time I was prompted to articulate it. I thought about it, then said, "I feel homesick." That still feels like the most accurate description - I felt homesick, but I was home.

Vanity calculates but poorly on the vanity of others; what a virtue we should distil from frailty, what a world of pain we should save our brethren, if we would suffer our own weakness to be the measure of theirs.

Part of the reason I wrote the book was I wanted to understand for myself why such good people let themselves get treated so badly.

I'm starting to realize that people lack good mirrors. It's so hard for anyone to show us how we look, & so hard for us to show anyone how we feel.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

We see through others only when we see through ourselves.

I was a self-centered bore. I was masochistic, and only thought I was happy. When I woke up and said, "there must be something wrong with me", I grew up. Because I never understood myself, how could I hope to understand anyone else? That's why I can truly say that now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her.

Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.

Intelligent people know others. Enlightened people know themselves.

People are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let's all give each other a pass, shall we?

Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life.

Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity.

What we have learned from other becomes our own reflection.

Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.

The organic fundamental error of humanism was that it desired to educate the common people (on whom it looked down) from its lofty stance instead of trying to understand them and to learn from them.

The ability to understand the cause of your own suffering gives you the ability to understand ours.

We read because they teach us about people, we can see ourselves in them,in their problems.And by seeing ourselves in them, we clarify ourselves, we explain ourselves to ourselves, so we can live with ourselves.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.

We have to listen to other people's stories. That's the thing. And that's the only way that we eventually get to know ourselves.

Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.

He who knows himself knows others.