Walter Benjamin Quotes

Quotes about:

• History breaks down into images, not into stories.

  Walter Benjamin

  Stories, Breaking Down, Break

  12 Copy quote

• All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

  Walter Benjamin

  Intelligence, Form, Interpretation

  40 Copy quote

• The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

  Walter Benjamin

  Love, Friendship, Relationship

  61 Copy quote

• We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector.

  Walter Benjamin

  Book, Facts, Belief

  25 Copy quote

• Every monument of civilization is a monument of barbarism

  Walter Benjamin

  Inspirational, Civilization, Barbarism

  30 Copy quote

• The work of memory collapses time.

  Walter Benjamin

  Memories, Collapse

  8 Copy quote

• To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

  Walter Benjamin

  Happiness, Being Happy, Fear

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland (1996). “Selected Writings: 1913-1926”, p.463, Harvard University Press

  70 Copy quote

• Those who do not learn how to decipher photographs will be the illiterate of the future.

  Walter Benjamin

  Learning, Photograph, Illiterate

  14 Copy quote

• Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.

  Walter Benjamin

  Judging, Public Opinion, Matter

  Walter Benjamin (1996). “Selected Writings: 1927-1934”, p.433, Harvard University Press

  8 Copy quote

• Thinking involves not only the flow of thoughts, but their arrest as well.

  Walter Benjamin

  Thinking, Flow, Wells

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.272, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.

  Walter Benjamin

  Art, Unique, Space

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.230, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  35 Copy quote

• There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

  Walter Benjamin

  Civilization, Barbarism, Documents

  "Theses on the Philosophy of History" by Walter Benjamin, translated by Harry Zohn, Illuminations, (VII), 1973.

  54 Copy quote

• The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

  Walter Benjamin

  Ideas, Progress, Status Quo

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings (2003). “Selected Writings: 1938-1940”, p.184, Harvard University Press

  48 Copy quote

• Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.

  Walter Benjamin

  Intimate Relationships, Alive, Ownership

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.77, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

• No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.

  Walter Benjamin

  Symphony, Beholder, Reader

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.

  Walter Benjamin

  Photography, Cameras, Doe

  Walter Benjamin (1968). “Illuminations”, p.247, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  36 Copy quote

• The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.

  Walter Benjamin

  Writing, Ideas, Delay

  Walter Benjamin, Marcus Paul Bullock, Michael William Jennings, Howard Eiland (1996). “Selected Writings: 1913-1926”, p.526, Harvard University Press

  71 Copy quote

• Every image of the past that is not recognised by the present as one of its own threatens to disappear irretrievably.

  Walter Benjamin

  Past, Disappear

  8 Copy quote

• In the end, we get older, we kill everyone who loves us through the worries we give them, through the troubled tenderness we inspire in them, and the fears we ceaselessly cause.

  Walter Benjamin

  Giving, Worry, Inspire

  10 Copy quote

• It is only for those without hope that hope is given.

  Walter Benjamin

  Given, Without Hope

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Attitude, Media, Judging

  Walter Benjamin (1996). “Selected Writings: 1927-1934”, p.433, Harvard University Press

  25 Copy quote

• You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.

  Walter Benjamin

  Book, Men, Taste

  35 Copy quote

• The experience of our generation:
  that capitalism will not die a natural death.

  Walter Benjamin

  Our Generation, Generations, Natural

  Walter Benjamin, Rolf Tiedemann (1999). “The Arcades Project”, p.948, Harvard University Press

  15 Copy quote

• The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the "state of emergency" in which we live is not the exception but the rule.

  Walter Benjamin

  Emergencies, Tradition, States

  Walter Benjamin, Michael William Jennings (2003). “Selected Writings: 1938-1940”, p.392, Harvard University Press

  25 Copy quote

• All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.

  Walter Benjamin

  Literature, Great Work, Genre

  11 Copy quote

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