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

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
Civilization
Time
Barbarism
Document
Documents

More quotes by Walter Benjamin

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The book borrower...proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures...as by his failure to read these books.
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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.
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Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.
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Marx says that revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But the situation may be quite different. Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake.
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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.
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All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.
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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.
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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
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The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe
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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.
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The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.
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The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the state of emergency in which we live is not the exception but the rule.
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What we must demand from the photographer is the ability to put such a caption beneath his picture as will rescue it from the ravages of modishness and confer upon it a revolutionary use value.
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Those who do not learn how to decipher photographs will be the illiterate of the future.
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The present, which, as a model of Messianic time, comprises the entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgment, coincides with the stature which the history of mankind has in the universe.
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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.
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Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.
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Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
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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.
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I would like to metamorphose into a mouse-mountain.
Walter Benjamin