Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.

The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the easy life of the gods would be a lifeless life.

the rule of Nobody ... is what the political form known as bureaucracy truly is.

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.

Men, forever tempted to lift the veil of the future-with the aid of computers or horoscopes or the intestines of sacrificial animals-have a worse record to show in these sciences than in almost any scientific endeavor.

For the possibilities of being different from what one is are infinite. Once one has negated oneself, however, there are no longer any particular choices.

... the space left to freedom is very small.ends are inherent in human nature and the same for all.