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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

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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
Rather
Mediums
Language
Allows
Strengthened
True
Originals
Translation
Light
Original
Translations
Doe
Shining
Transparent
Even
Fully
Shine
Pure
Obscure
Stand
Medium

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Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.
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All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.
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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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Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].
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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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Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.
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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
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Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.
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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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It is in a small village in the Pyrenees where no one knows me 7that my life will come to a close.... There is not enough time remaining for me to write all the letters I would like to write.
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Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information-hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.
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The illiterate of the future will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.
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Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.
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Work on a good piece of writing proceeds on three levels: a musical one, where it is composed, an architectural one, where it is constructed, and finally a textile one, where it is woven.
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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.
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In every case the storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers.
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For only that which we knew and practiced at age 15 will one day constitute our attraction. And one thing, therefore, can never be made good: having neglected to run away from home.
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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.
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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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As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.
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