A Quote by Hannah Arendt

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving.

Hannah Arendt

Quote Topics

Being Done Faculty Forgiving Possible Predicament Redemption Unable Undo

Quote Author

Hannah Arendt
German - Historian
October 14, 1906 - December 4, 1975

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility??of being unable to undo what one has done??is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties depend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.

Hannah Arendt

What is forgiving? Forgiving is giving up all claim on one who had hurt you and letting go of the emotional consequences of the hurt. How can we do that? It's done at the price of beating back our pride. By nature we are selfish. Forgiving, by definition, is unselfish. Being hurt by another person wounds our pride. Pride stands in the way of forgiving. We cannot forgive without God's help. It might be possible for us to forgive something inconsequential without God's help; but in significant matters, we are unlikely to accomplish anything without God's involvement in the process.

Richard Walters

I think that's very significant that we're so attached to the idea now of - it was something I advocated for years, that you can make music in studios, music doesn't have to be made as a real-time experience. But now you see the results of that in people who are completely crippled unless they know that they have the possibility of "cut and paste" and "undo." And "undo" and "undo" and "undo" and "undo" and "undo" again.

Brian Eno

People who are unable to use their hands skillfully for all kinds of work, will not become good thinkers and will behave awkwardly in life. It is not the head alone, but the whole human being that is a logician. Activities demanding manual and bodily skill, such as knitting, leads to the enhancement of the faculty of judgment. This faculty is actually developed least of all by exercises in logic.

Rudolf Steiner

I know I cannot undo this. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded.

Mitch Albom

In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.

Hannah Arendt

The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises).

Rich Hall

When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.

Henri Nouwen

Paula Deen is a human being. She deserves forgiveness and a chance at redemption as much as anyone else. America is about redemption.

Don Lemon

We have lost the invaluable faculty of being shocked a faculty which has hitherto almost distinguished the Man or Woman from the beast or child.

C. S. Lewis

If Judge Steven T. O'Neill sent Mr. Cosby away for the rest of his life, that sentence couldn't undo what he's convicted of having done to Andrea Constand, his accuser in two trials. It also can't undo what he once did for me, which was to make me believe in myself.

Wesley Morris

I'm not gonna try to defend, or undo what's been done. All I could say about whatever's been done, it's been done, and it's water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life.

Ike Turner

And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.

Charles Dickens

Want of will causes paralysis of every faculty. In spiritual things man is utterly unable because resolvedly unwilling.

Charles Spurgeon

At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too . . .

Charles Dickens

To be an American and unable to play baseball is comparable to being a Polynesian and unable to swim.