Quote

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

Walter Benjamin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Civilization
Time
Barbarism
Document
Documents

More quotes by Walter Benjamin

Image
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
Image
The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
Walter Benjamin
Image
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
Image
Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.
Walter Benjamin
Image
All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
Walter Benjamin
Image
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
Image
It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.
Walter Benjamin
Image
To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiar beauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity and beauty of a failure.
Walter Benjamin
Image
To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The work of memory collapses time.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one's future must be hewn.
Walter Benjamin
Image
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
Walter Benjamin
Image
Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.
Walter Benjamin
Image
All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.
Walter Benjamin
Image
I came into the world under the sign of Saturn -- the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays.
Walter Benjamin