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As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.

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
Comprehend
Extinction
Flight
Begin
Minerva
Dark
Hegel
Doe
Collector
Owl
Collectors

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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.
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Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas.
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The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.
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How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
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Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written.
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Literature tells very little to those who understand it.
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[Photography] has become more and more subtle, more and more modern, and the result is that it is now incapable of photographing a tenement or a rubbish heap without transfiguring it. Not to mention a river dam or electric cable factory: in front of these, photography can now only say, How beautiful!
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The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.
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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.
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No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
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During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well
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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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There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
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Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
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Every monument of civilization is a monument of barbarism
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It is only for those without hope that hope is given.
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