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Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

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
Armed
Leap
Conviction
Stroller
Work
Strollers
Like
Wayside
Relieve
Robbers
Quotations

More quotes by Walter Benjamin

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The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe
Walter Benjamin
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For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.
Walter Benjamin
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Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.
Walter Benjamin
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There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Walter Benjamin
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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
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Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.
Walter Benjamin
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You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses.
Walter Benjamin
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It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
Walter Benjamin
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How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
Walter Benjamin
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Capitalism is a purely cultic religion, perhaps the most extreme that ever existed.
Walter Benjamin
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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
Walter Benjamin
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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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The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Walter Benjamin
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Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
Walter Benjamin
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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
Walter Benjamin
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What we must demand from the photographer is the ability to put such a caption beneath his picture as will rescue it from the ravages of modishness and confer upon it a revolutionary use value.
Walter Benjamin
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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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As long as there is still one beggar around, there will still be myth.
Walter Benjamin
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To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves.
Walter Benjamin
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He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.
Walter Benjamin