Quote

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.

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
Touched
Library
Books
Order
Book
Unpacking
Mild
Shelves
Boredom

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Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].
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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.
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Capitalism is a purely cultic religion, perhaps the most extreme that ever existed.
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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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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
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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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Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.
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To the lover the loved one always appears as solitary.
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Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
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Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.
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Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.
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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.
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All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.
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Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.
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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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