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Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
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
Conquers
Frenzy
Ecstasy
Conquer
Substance
Destruction
Living
Procreation
More quotes by Walter Benjamin
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.
Walter Benjamin
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
Thinking involves not only the flow of thoughts, but their arrest as well.
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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 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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The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.
Walter Benjamin
Experience has taught me that the shallowest of communist platitudes contains more of a hierarchy of meaning than contemporary bourgeois profundity.
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The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.
Walter Benjamin
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.
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The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.
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The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.
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History breaks down into images, not into stories.
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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.
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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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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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All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.
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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.
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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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Literature tells very little to those who understand it.
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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
Walter Benjamin