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The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.

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
Convictions
Construction
Conviction
Present
Facts
Power
Life

More quotes by Walter Benjamin

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The experience of our generation: that capitalism will not die a natural death.
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You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.
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If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-destroying if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates if the former threatens, the latter strikes if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood
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To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it the way it really was...It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.
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Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
Walter Benjamin
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Rather than ask, What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time? I should like to ask, What is its position in them.
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We have long forgotten the ritual by which the house of our life was erected. But when it is under assault and enemy bombs are already taking their toll, what enervated, perverse antiquities do they not lay bare in the foundations.
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Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed, an architectural one, where it is constructed, and finally a textile one, where it is woven.
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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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We do not always proclaim loudly the most important thing we have to say. Nor do we always privately share it with those closest to us, our intimate friends, those who have been most devotedly ready to receive our confession.
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It is only for those without hope that hope is given.
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The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
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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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Every monument of civilization is a monument of barbarism
Walter Benjamin
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We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector.
Walter Benjamin
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Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.
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The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.
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You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses.
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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
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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