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In the convulsions of the commodity economy, we begin to recognize the monuments of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumbled.
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
Begin
Convulsions
Economy
Crumbled
Even
Monuments
Bourgeoisie
Monument
Commodity
Ruins
Recognize
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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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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
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For what is the program of the bourgeois parties? A bad poem on springtime, filled to bursting with metaphors.
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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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History breaks down into images, not into stories.
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Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.
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Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
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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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