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The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.
Walter Benjamin
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Walter Benjamin
Age: 48 †
Born: 1892
Born: July 15
Died: 1940
Died: September 26
Art Critic
Essayist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Philosopher
Sociologist
Translator
Writer
Berlin
Germany
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin
Public
Decrease
Greater
Conventional
Significance
Social
Enjoyment
Art
Distinction
Uncritically
Form
Enjoyed
Sharper
Criticism
Criticized
Truly
Aversion
More quotes by Walter Benjamin
All disgust is originally disgust at touching.
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Literature tells very little to those who understand it.
Walter Benjamin
Every image of the past that is not recognised by the present as one of its own threatens to disappear irretrievably.
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To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves.
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It is only for those without hope that hope is given.
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For only that which we knew and practiced at age 15 will one day constitute our attraction. And one thing, therefore, can never be made good: having neglected to run away from home.
Walter Benjamin
Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.
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Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written.
Walter Benjamin
We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector.
Walter Benjamin
Melancholy betrays the world for the sake of knowledge. But in its tenacious self-absorption it embraces dead objects in its contemplation, in order to redeem them
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Allegories are, in the realm of thought, what ruins are in the realm of things.
Walter Benjamin
No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
Walter Benjamin
There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
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Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
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All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.
Walter Benjamin
Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information-hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.
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These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.
Walter Benjamin
In every case the storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers.
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The work of memory collapses time.
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Art teaches us to see into things. Folk art and kitsch allow us to see outward from within things.
Walter Benjamin
