German Jewish philosopher (1892-1940)
Only a thoughtless observer can deny that correspondences come into play between the world of modern technology and the archaic symbol-world of mythology.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Arcades Project
The work is the death mask of its conception.
WALTER BENJAMIN
One-Way Street
I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Selected Writing
The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Theses on the Philosophy of History
It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Reflections
Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Reflections
God's linguistic being is the word. All human language is only reflection of the word in name. Name is no closer to the word than knowledge to creation. The infinity of all human language always remains limited and analytical in nature in comparison to the absolutely unlimited and creative infinity of the divine word.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Reflections
Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Unpacking my Library: A Talk About Book Collecting
The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Theses on the Philosophy of History
You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses.
WALTER BENJAMIN
"Main features of my first impression of hashish", December 18, 1927
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
WALTER BENJAMIN
The Storyteller
He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say. He is impelled by inertia, rather than curiosity, and nothing is more unlike the submissive apathy with which he hears his fate revealed than the alert dexterity with which the man of courage lays hands on the future.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Selected Writings
All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Illuminations
The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
WALTER BENJAMIN
One-Way Street
Scholarship, far from leading inexorably to a profession, may in fact preclude it. For it does not permit you to abandon it.
WALTER BENJAMIN
The Life of Students
Knowledge exists only in lightning flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterwards.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Arcades Project
The historical materialist leaves it to others to be drained by the whore called "Once upon a time" in historicism's bordello.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Theses on the Philosophy of History
In the world's structure dream loosens individuality like a bad tooth.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Reflections
History breaks down in images not into stories.
WALTER BENJAMIN
Arcades Project
We must not forget that the most enduring modifications in toys are never the work of adults, whether they be educators, manufacturers or writers, but are the result of children at play.
WALTER BENJAMIN
"Old Toys", Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Part 1 1927-1930