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Hannah Arendt Quotes about Power

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All political institutions are manifestations and materializations of power; they petrify and decay as soon as the living power of the people ceases to uphold them.

All political institutions are manifestations and materializations of power; they petrify and decay as soon as the living power of the people ceases to uphold them.

Hannah Arendt
Power, People, Political
Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.150, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is 'in power' we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with ... disappears, 'his power' also vanishes.

Hannah Arendt
Power, Names, Numbers
Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance.

Hannah Arendt
Peace, Power, Opposites
Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.165, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

power can be thought of as the never-ending, self-feeding motor of all political action that corresponds to the legendary unending accumulation of money that begets money.

Hannah Arendt
Power, Self, Political
Origins of Totalitarianism ch. 5 (1951)

the fateful equating of power with violence, of the political with government, and of government with a necessary evil has begun.

Hannah Arendt
Power, Government, Evil
Hannah Arendt (1963). “On revolution”, Viking Press

The extreme form of power is All against One, the extreme form of violence is One against All.

Hannah Arendt
Power, Violence, Form
Hannah Arendt (1970). “On Violence”, p.48, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

To speak of the impotence of power is no longer a witty paradox.

Hannah Arendt
Witty, Power, Speak
Hannah Arendt (1970). “On violence”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

every political structure, new or old, left to itself develops stabilizing forces which stand in the way of constant transformation and expansion. Therefore all political bodies appear to be temporary obstacles when they are seen as part of an eternal stream of growing power.

Hannah Arendt
Power, Political, Expansion
Hannah Arendt (2017). “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, p.198, Penguin UK

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