Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence.

Hannah Arendt
Some Similar Quotes
  1. ...and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, 'That was fine'. And your life is a long line of fine. - Gillian Flynn

  2. The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. - Horace Walpole

  3. Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. - Jean Racine

  4. Don't JustDon't just learn, experience. Don't just read, absorb. Don't just change, transform. Don't just relate, advocate. Don't just promise, prove. Don't just criticize, encourage. Don't just think, ponder. Don't just take, give. Don't just see, feel. Don’t just dream, do. Don't just hear, listen.... - Roy T. Bennett

  5. Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out. - Criss Jami

More Quotes By Hannah Arendt
  1. I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is possible today only on the fringes of society, where one then runs the risk of starving or being stoned to death. In these circumstances, a sense of humor is a great help.

  2. When an old truth ceases to be applicable, it does not become any truer by being stood on its head.

  3. The common prejudice that love is as common as "romance" may be due to the fact that we all learned about it first through poetry. But the poets fool us; they are the only ones to whom love is not only a crucial, but an...

  4. The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.

  5. The world and the people who inhabit it are not the same. The world lies between people, and this in-between — much more than (as is often thought) men or even man — is today the object of the greatest concern and the most obvious...

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