Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians. - Hannah Arendt

"I would have said that Eichmann was profoundly, egregiously stupid, and for me stupidity is not the same as having a low IQ. Here I rather agree with Kant, that stupidity is caused, not by brain failure, but by a wicked heart. Insensitiveness, opacity, inability to make connections, ofter accompanied by low "animal" cunning. One cannot help feeling that this mental oblivion is chosen, by the heart or the moral will — an active preference, and that explains why one is so irritated by stupidity, which is not the case when one is dealing with a truly backward individual."

To be curious about someone opened you to contamination from them. But she was still determined to play him a trick, to take a revenge for Kay, for women, and most of all for the impudence of his associating himself with her. She had no pity for Harald. Swinging the car into line behind the funeral procession, she waited for the question he would ask. “To be superior,” he said, “of course, is not only a prerequisite for tragedy; it is tragedy. Hamlet’s tragedy.

But this poor chap is a dangerous neurotic.” Polly laughed. “So you saw that, Father. I never could. He always seemed so normal.” “It’s the same thing,” said her father, putting the groceries away. “All neurotics are petty bourgeois. And vice versa. Madness is too revolutionary for them. They can’t go the whole hog. We madmen are the aristocrats of mental illness. You could never marry that fellow, my dear.