“A characteristic of human action is that it always begins something new, and this does not mean that it is ever permitted to start ab ovo, to create ex nihilo. In order to make room for one’s own action, something that was there before must be removed or destroyed, and things as they were before are changed. Such change would be impossible if we could not mentally remove ourselves from where we physically are located and imagine that things might as well be different from what they actually are. In other words, the deliberate denial of factual truth – the ability to lie – and the capacity to change facts – the ability to act – are interconnected; they owe their existence to the same source: imagination.” (Arendt, 1969: 5)

"He (the Liar) is an actor by nature; he says what is not so because he wants things to be different from what they are – that is, he wants to change the world.” (Arendt, 1968: 246)


Arendt, Hannah. Truth in Politics, in: Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (Penguin Books, New York, 1968 ), 223-59. Arendt, Hannah. Lying in Politics, in: Crises of the Republic (Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1969), 1-48. Sourced from Eenkhoorn, P. Lying in Business, 2010, arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=106758