For the propaganda of totalitarian movements which precede and accompany totalitarian regimes is invariably as frank as it is mendacious, and would-be totalitarian rulers usually start their careers by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones. The Nazis were “convinced that evil-doing in our time has a morbid force of attraction,” Bolshevik assurances inside and outside Russia that they do not recognize ordinary moral standards have become a mainstay of Communist propaganda, and experience has proven time and again that the propaganda value of evil deeds and general contempt for moral standards is independent of mere self-interest, supposedly the most powerful psychological factor in politics.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)
(Source)
Quotations about:
attractiveness
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Beauties in vain their pretty Eyes may roll;
Charms strike the Sight, but Merit wins the Soul.
“A man’s virility is in his beard,” he insisted.
To which Alexia replied, “And a woman’s is in her décolletage. Yet you don’t see me allowing mine to get out of control, now, do you?”
“If wishes were balloons,’ was his only response.
Gail Carriger (b. 1976) American archaeologist, author [pen name of Tofa Borregaard]
Timeless (2012)
ALICK. What IS charm, exactly, Maggie?
MAGGIE. Oh, it’s — it’s a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have.
James Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish novelist and dramatist
What Every Woman Knows (1918)
Usually quoted in an elided format ("Charm, it's a sort of bloom on a woman ...:).
