Quote

The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.

Walter Benjamin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Good
Brings
Mouths
Moment
Throbbing
Lost
Tidings
Moments
Opens
Past
Historian
May
Void
Heart
Mouth

More quotes by Walter Benjamin

Image
To the lover the loved one always appears as solitary.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.
Walter Benjamin
Image
He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].
Walter Benjamin
Image
Each morning the day lies like a fresh shirt on our bed this incomparably fine, incomparably tightly woven tissue of pure prediction fits us perfectly. The happiness of the next twenty-four hours depends on our ability, on waking, to pick it up.
Walter Benjamin
Image
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.
Walter Benjamin
Image
There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.
Walter Benjamin
Image
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.
Walter Benjamin
Image
You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.
Walter Benjamin
Image
True translation is transparent: it does not obscure the original, does not stand in its light, but rather allows pure language, as if strengthened by its own medium, to shine even more fully on the original.
Walter Benjamin
Image
History breaks down into images, not into stories.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Taking food alone tends to make one hard and coarse. Those accustomed to it must lead a Spartan life if they are not to go downhill. Hermits have observed, if for only this reason, a frugal diet. For it is only in company that eating is done justice food must be divided and distributed if it is to be well received.
Walter Benjamin
Image
For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.
Walter Benjamin
Image
The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.
Walter Benjamin
Image
Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written.
Walter Benjamin
Image
If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.
Walter Benjamin