(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
Hannah Arendt

“What was morally so disastrous in the acceptance of these privileged categories was that everyone who demanded to have an 'exception' made in his case implicitly recognized the rule, but this point, apparently, was never grasped by these 'good men,' Jewish and Gentile, who busied themselves about all those 'special cases' for which preferential treatment could be asked... But if the Jewish and Gentile pleaders of 'special cases' were unaware of their involuntary complicity, this implicit recognition of the rule, which spelled death for all non-special cases, must have been very obvious to those who were engaged in the business of murder. They must have felt, at least, that by being asked to make exceptions, and by occasionally granting them, and thus earning gratitude, they had convinced their opponents of the lawfulness of what they were doing.”

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Read more quotes from Hannah Arendt


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!

2 likes
All Members Who Liked This Quote



This Quote Is From

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt
32,814 ratings, average rating, 2,919 reviews
Open Preview

Browse By Tag