"the reason why we are never able to foretell with certainty the outcome and end of any action is simply that action has no end. the process of a single deed can quite literally endure throughout time until mankind itself has come to an end.
"that deeds possess such an enormous capacity for endurance, superior to every other man-made product, could be a matter of pride if men were able to bear its burden, the burden of irreversibility and unpredictability, from which the action process draws its very strength. that this is impossible, men have always known. they have know that he who acts never quite knows what he is doing, that he always becomes 'guilty' of consequences he never intended or foresaw, that no matter how disastrous and unexpected the consequences of his deed he can never outdo it, that the process he started is never consummated unequivocally in one single deed or event, and that its very meaning never discloses itself to the actor but only to the backward glance of the historian who himself does not act."
- arendt
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