Quote

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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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
Upon
Beneath
Use
Revolutionary
Must
Photographer
Picture
Demand
Caption
Value
Ravages
Ability
Confer
Values
Rescue

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To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return.
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To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
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Kitsch offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, wihtout sublimation.
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There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.
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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.
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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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The distracted person, too, can form habits.
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