Ken

“We can no more master the past than we can undo it. But we can reconcile ourselves to it. The form for this is the lament, which arises out of all recollection.”
― Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times

“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk.”
― Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment

“Anyone who cannot cope with life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate . . . but with his other hand he can jot down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different and more things than the others; after all, he is dead in his own lifetime and the real survivor.” —Franz Kafka, Diaries, entry of October 19, 1921”
― Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

“Nothing is more transient in our world, less stable and solid, than that form of success which brings fame; nothing comes swifter and more readily than oblivion.”
― Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment