Quote of the Week

About the Quote of the Week

The Quote of the Week has long been a beloved feature of the Hannah Arendt Center's Amor Mundi newsletter. Each week, we invite prominent Arendtians, artists, journalists, and emerging scholars to reflect on a passage from Arendt's work—something that has sparked their thinking, stirred a memory, or opened a new question.These short pieces are intentionally open-ended: a “thought in progress” rather than a polished argument. They offer a space for reflection, curiosity, and dialogue—true to the spirit of Arendt herself. Contributors approach the Quote in many different ways, but each piece brings Arendt’s words into conversation with the present.

If you have any questions, please contact Jana Mader, Director of Academic Programs, at [email protected]. To submit an idea for a contribution, please use the form below to share it with us.

Browse our Library of Quotes of the Week

Explore past contributions here.

Imagination, Public Space, and Politics

Arendt’s understanding of this world, being a “world of things”, offers a political understanding of what architecture does: it offers the spatial and temporal conditions within which political life can take place.

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Sacrificing the Truth to Friendship

Although Cicero’s and Arendt’s conceptions of friendship differ in many respects, what they have in common is the belief that open and honest discussion is the hallmark of friendship (§6-7)

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In the midst of darkness

In the 1968 preface of Men in Dark Times, Hannah Arendt invites us to explore the life of some extraordinary human beings that, with their unconventional lives, shed some light when darkness prevailed in history and freedom was not in sight.

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Submit a Quote of the Week

Are you interested in contributing to our Quote of the Week series?

We welcome submissions from scholars, writers, artists, students, and anyone who thinks with and through the work of Hannah Arendt. The Quote of the Week is a space for reflection, exploration, and ongoing thought — a short piece (usually 500–1000 words) responding to a brief passage from Arendt’s writing.

Your contribution can be speculative, personal, analytical, or creative. It doesn't need to present a finished argument — we’re especially interested in ideas that are still unfolding.

Use the link below to share your idea or submit a piece via our Submission Form. We look forward to hearing from you!

SUBMIT HERE

The Hannah Arendt Personal Library

The Quote of the Week lives in conversation with the Hannah Arendt Personal Library (HAPL), housed at Bard College. The HAPL contains over 4,000 volumes from Arendt’s own collection — many filled with her marginalia, notes, and underlinings. It’s a rare glimpse into her intellectual world: the books she read, wrestled with, and returned to. Contributors often draw inspiration from these volumes, tracing the dialogues Arendt carried on in the margins and continuing them through their own reflections.

To explore the collection, visit https://blogs.bard.edu/arendtcollection/

Meet Maggie Hough

This year’s Quote of the Week support has contributed her editorial expertise and thoughtful engagement to the program

Maggie Hough worked at the HAC for three years as a student fellow and chair of student fellows before graduating in 2024 with a B.A. in Classical Studies. She wrote her senior project on Arendt's Life of the Mind and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, in which she explored Arendt's definition of thinking and Aristotle's definition of complete friendship, which is meaningfully intertwined with his own conception of thought. She ultimately used this exploration to argue that we are not living if we are not thinking, and while solitary thinking is certainly possible, a meaningful life is built on thinking with one's friends. She now returns to the Arendt Center as the Quote of the Week Coordinator. She is based in New York City.

Stay Connected

If you enjoy the Quote of the Week, you might also be interested in these ongoing programs at the Hannah Arendt Center:

Virtual Reading Group

Join us each week for thoughtful, open conversations on Arendt’s work and related texts in a welcoming community.

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Follow us on social media and let us know what’s your favorite quote by Hannah Arendt? Tag us on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky and use #QuoteoftheWeek to share your reflections and join the conversation.