Walter Benjamin Quotes - Page 3

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• Taking food alone tends to make one hard and coarse. Those accustomed to it must lead a Spartan life if they are not to go downhill. Hermits have observed, if for only this reason, a frugal diet. For it is only in company that eating is done justice; food must be divided and distributed if it is to be well received.

  Walter Benjamin

  Food, Justice, Done

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland (1996). “Selected Writings: 1913-1926”, p.477, Harvard University Press

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• Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.

  Walter Benjamin

  Dream, Eggs, Boredom

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland, Gary Smith (2002). “Selected Writings: 1935-1938”, p.149, Harvard University Press

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• This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.

  Walter Benjamin

  Angel, Past, Wings

  "Theses on the Philosophy of History". Book by Walter Benjamin, 1955.

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• To the lover the loved one always appears as solitary.

  Walter Benjamin

  Love, Dream, Solitary

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• I came into the world under the sign of Saturn -- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays.

  Walter Benjamin

  Stars, Delay, World

  Walter Benjamin (2009). “One-Way Street and Other Writings”, p.8, Penguin UK

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• Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

  Walter Benjamin

  Writing, Musical, Woven

  Walter Benjamin (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.44, Harvard University Press

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• The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.

  Walter Benjamin

  Power, Facts, Life Is

  Walter Benjamin, Peter Demetz (1986). “Reflections: essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writing”, Schocken

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• Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.

  Walter Benjamin

  Book, Debate, Harlots

  Walter Benjamin (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.51, Harvard University Press

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• The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.

  Walter Benjamin

  Reality, Thinking, Perception

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.233, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return.

  Walter Benjamin

  Mean, Looks, Auras

  Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt (1968). “Illuminations”, Schocken Books Incorporated

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• Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas.

  Walter Benjamin

  Running, Writing, Ideas

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings, Edmund Jephcott (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.47, Harvard University Press

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• The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.

  Walter Benjamin

  Criminals, Moral, Killing

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland (1996). “Selected Writings: 1913-1926”, p.481, Harvard University Press

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• All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

  Walter Benjamin

  Blow, Left Hand, Lefties

  Walter Benjamin (2016). “One-Way Street”, p.19, Harvard University Press

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• The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.

  Walter Benjamin

  Suicide, Character, Feelings

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland, Gary Smith (1999). “Gesammelte Schriften”, p.542, Harvard University Press

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• He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.

  Walter Benjamin

  Lying, Dresses, Vests

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• Any order is a balancing act of extreme precariousness.

  Walter Benjamin

  Order, Balance, Extremes

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.70, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In every case the storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers.

  Walter Benjamin

  Men, Cases, Reader

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland, Gary Smith (2002). “Selected Writings: 1935-1938”, p.145, Harvard University Press

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• If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.

  Walter Benjamin

  Dream, Sleep, Eggs

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland, Gary Smith (2002). “Selected Writings: 1935-1938”, p.149, Harvard University Press

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• True translation is transparent: it does not obscure the original, does not stand in its light, but rather allows pure language, as if strengthened by its own medium, to shine even more fully on the original.

  Walter Benjamin

  Light, Shining, Doe

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• In the fields with which we are concerned, knowledge comes only in flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterward.

  Walter Benjamin

  Long, Rolling, Fields

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• Literature tells very little to those who understand it.

  Walter Benjamin

  Literature, Littles

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland (1996). “Selected Writings: 1913-1926”, p.253, Harvard University Press

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• In the convulsions of the commodity economy, we begin to recognize the monuments of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumbled.

  Walter Benjamin

  Bourgeoisie, Ruins, Commodity

  Walter Benjamin, Peter Demetz (1986). “Reflections: essays, aphorisms, autobiographical writing”, Schocken

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• Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information-hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.

  Walter Benjamin

  Information, Language, Hallmark

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.79, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We do not always proclaim loudly the most important thing we have to say. Nor do we always privately share it with those closest to us, our intimate friends, those who have been most devotedly ready to receive our confession.

  Walter Benjamin

  Important, Confession, Intimate

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland, Gary Smith (1999). “Gesammelte Schriften”, p.240, Harvard University Press

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• Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a forest, requires some schooling.

  Walter Benjamin

  Mean, Cities, Doe

  Walter Benjamin (2006). “Berlin Childhood Around 1900”, p.1, Harvard University Press

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