Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

Hanna Arendt
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Everything not forbidden is compulsory - T.h. White
  2. Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100, 000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100, 000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100, 000. <span... - Christopher Hitchens
  3. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in... - Gore Vidal
  4. History has seen many who claim to be deliverer and saviour of the people. They might come with force and violence and parade their might and splendour as conquerors. The pharaohs of Egypt, Sennacherib king of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Darius of Persia, Alexander the... - John Myer
  5. I saw exactly one picture of Marx and one of Lenin in my whole stay, but it's been a long time since ideology had anything to do with it. Not without cunning, Fat Man and Little Boy gradually mutated the whole state belief system into... - Christopher Hitchens
More Quotes By Hanna Arendt
  1. It seems symbolic of this all-pervading unpredictability that those engaged in the perfection of the means of destruction have finally brought about a level of technical development where their aim, namely warfare, is on the point of disappearing altogether.
  2. Th danger of exchanging the necessary insecurity of philosophical thought for the total explanation of an ideology and its [worldview], is not even so much the risk of falling for some usually vulgar, always uncritical assumption as of exchanging the freedom inherent in man's capacity...
  3. Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
Related Topics