Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer’s apprentice who lacks the magic formula to break the spell.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist

The Human Condition, Part 5, ch. 33 “Irreversibility and the Power to Forgive” (1958)
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