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Walter Benjamin
52 quotes
“Nothing is so hateful to the philistine as the "dreams of his youth." ... For what appeared to him in his dreams was the voice of the spirit, calling him once, as it does everyone. It is of this that youth always reminds him, eternally and ominously. That is why he is antagonistic toward youth.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Experience" (1913) as translated by L. Spencer and S. Jost, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), pp. 4-5
“Because he never raises his eyes to the great and the meaningful, the philistine has taken experience as his gospel. It has become for him a message about life's commonness. But he has never grasped that there exists something other than experience, that there are values—inexperienceable—which we serve.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Experience" (1913) as translated by L. Spencer and S. Jost, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), p. 4
“Jede Äußerung menschlichen Geisteslebens kann als eine Art der Sprache aufgefaßt werden, und diese Auffassung erschließt nach Art einer wahrhaften Methode überall neue Fragestellungen.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), p. 62
“Zur Verknechtung der Sprache im Geschwätz tritt die Verknechtung der Dinge in der Narretei fast als deren unausbleibliche Folge.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), p. 72
“I would like to metamorphose into a mouse-mountain.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline (1927-1934, English translation 1997)
“Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline (1927-1934)
“Ich packe meine Bibliothek aus ("Unpacking my library", 1931), p. 2”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. … Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Unpacking my Library: A Talk About Book Collecting (1931)
“The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room. And only one activity: clearing away. His need for fresh air and open space is stronger than any hatred.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Destructive Character" Frankfurter Zeitung (20 November 1931)
“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. … For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form — it may be called fleeting or eternal — is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Berlin Chronicle (1932–, unfinished), in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings – vol. 2, pt. 2: 1931-1934, ed. Michael William Jennings, Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 612
“Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner Reproduzierbarkeit The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)
“There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An das Leben der Studenten tritt die Frage nach seiner bewußten Einheit heran. ... Das Auszeichnende im Studentenleben ist in der Tat der Gegenwille, sich einem Prinzip zu unterwerfen, mit der Idee sich zu durchdringen. Der Name der Wissenschaft dient vorzüglich, eine tiefeingesessene, verbürgerte Indifferenz zu verbergen.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Der Beruf folgt so wenig aus der Wissenschaft, dass sie ihn sogar ausschließen kann. Denn die Wissenschaft duldet ihrem Wesen nach keine Lösung von sich.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true sign of decadence is not the collusion of the university and the state (something that is by no means incompatible with honest barbarity), but the theory and guarantee of academic freedom, when in reality people assume with brutal simplicity that the aim of study is to steer its disciples to a socially conceived individuality.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Für die Romantiker und für die spekulative Philosophie bedeutete der Terminus kritisch: objektiv produktiv, schöpferisch aus Besonnenheit. Kritisch sein hieß die Erhebung des Denkens über alle Bindungen so weit treiben, daß gleichsam zauberisch aus der Einsicht in das Falsche der Bindungen die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit sich schwang.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The critic does not pass judgment on the work; rather, art itself passes judgment, either by taking up the work in the medium of criticism or by rejecting it and thereby appraising it as beneath all criticism.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Besteht das Original nicht um dessentwillen, wie ließe sich dann die Übersetzung aus dieser Beziehung verstehen?”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So dürfte von einem unvergeßlichen Leben oder Augenblick gesprochen werden, auch wenn alle Menschen sie vergessen hätten. Wenn nämlich deren Wesen es forderte, nicht vergessen zu werden, so würde jenes Prädikat nichts Falsches, sondern nur eine Forderung, der Menschen nicht entsprechen, und zugleich auch wohl den Verweis auf einen Bereich enthalten, in dem ihr entsprochen wäre: auf ein Gedenken Gottes.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alle zweckmäßigen Lebenserscheinungen wie ihre Zweckmäßigkeit überhaupt sind letzten Endes zweckmäßig nicht für das Leben, sondern für den Ausdruck seines Wesens, für die Darstellung seiner Bedeutung.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Im Kapitalismus ist eine Religion zu erblicken, d.h. der Kapitalismus dient essentiell der Befriedigung derselben Sorgen, Qualen, Unruhen, auf die ehemals die so genannten Religionen Antwort gaben.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Translated by Rodney Livingstone in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 1 (Harvard: 1996)
“Der Kapitalismus ist vermutlich der erste Fall eines nicht entsühnenden, sondern verschuldenden Kultus. ... Ein ungeheures Schuldbewußtsein das sich nicht zu entsühnen weiß, greift zum Kultus, um in ihm diese Schuld nicht zu sühnen, sondern universal zu machen, dem Bewußtsein sie einzuhämmern und endlich und vor allem den Gott selbst in diese Schuld einzubegreifen.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Translated by Chad Kautzer in The Frankfurt School on Religion: Key Writings by the Major Thinkers (2005), p. 259
“Where the presence of truth should be possible, it can be possible solely under the condition of the recognition of myth—that is, the recognition of its crushing indifference to truth.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Treatises may be didactic in tone, but essentially they lack the conclusiveness of an instruction which could be asserted, like doctrine, by virtue of its own authority. ... Tirelessly the process of thinking makes new beginnings, returning in a roundabout way to its original object. This continual pausing for breath is the mode most proper to the process of contemplation. For by pursuing different levels of meaning in its examination of one single object it receives both the incentive to begin again and the justification for its irregular rhythm.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Criticism and prophecy must be the two categories that meet in the salvation of the past”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 53-54 (trans. John Osborne (London: Verso, 1977)
“Mir schien: Ausgesprochene Unlust, mich über Dinge des praktischen Lebens, Zukunft, Daten, Politik zu unterhalten. Man ist an die intellektuelle Sphäre gebannt wie manchmal Besessene auf die sexuelle, ist von ihr angesaugt.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Main features of my first impression of hashish" (18 December 1927), On Hashish (2006), p. 21
“Man geht immer die gleichen Wege des Denkens wie vorher. Nur scheinen sie mit Rosen bestreut.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Main features of my first impression of hashish" (18 December 1927), On Hashish (2006), p. 22
“A curious paradox: people have only the narrowest private interest in mind when they act, yet they are at the same time more than ever determined in their behavior by the instincts of the mass. ... The diversity of individual goals is immaterial in face of the identity of the determining forces.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of the past.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history. To be sure, only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past — which is to say, only a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments. Each moment it has lived becomes a citation à l'ordre du jour — and that day is Judgement Day.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Es ist niemals ein Dokument der Kultur, ohne zugleich ein solches der Barbarei zu sein.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nature of this melancholy becomes clearer, once one asks the question, with whom does the historical writer of historicism actually empathize. The answer is irrefutably with the victor. Those who currently rule are however the heirs of all those who have ever been victorious. Empathy with the victors thus comes to benefit the current rulers every time.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The historical materialist leaves it to others to be drained by the whore called "Once upon a time" in historicism's bordello.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thinking involves not only the flow of thoughts, but their arrest as well.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The present, which, as a model of Messianic time, comprises the entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgment, coincides with the stature which the history of mankind has in the universe.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We know that the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. The Torah and the prayers instruct them in remembrance, however. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This did not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogeneous empty time. For every second of time was the straight gate through which the Messiah might enter.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only a thoughtless observer can deny that correspondences come into play between the world of modern technology and the archaic symbol-world of mythology.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History breaks down in images not into stories.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the fields with which we are concerned knowledge exists only in lightning flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterwards.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In what time does man live? The thinkers have always known that he does not live in any time at all. The immortality of thoughts and deeds banishes him to a timeless realm at whose heart an inscrutable death lies in wait. ... Devoured by the countless demands of the moment, time slipped away from him; the medium in which the pure melody of his youth would swell was destroyed. The fulfilled tranquility in which his late maturity would ripen was stolen from him. It was purloined by everyday reality, which, with its events, chance occurrences, and obligations, disrupted the myriad opportunities of youthful time, immortal time. ... From day to day, second to second, the self preserves itself, clinging to that instrument: time, the instrument that it was supposed to play.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Metaphysics of Youth," in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), pp. 10-11
“… für den wahren Sammler ist die Erwerbung eines alten Buches dessen Wiedergeburt. … Die alte Welt erneuern – das ist der tiefste Trieb im Wunsch des Sammlers, Neues zu erwerben, und darum steht der Sammler älterer Bücher dem Quell des Sammelns näher als der Interessent für bibliophile Neudrucke. translation: … for the true collector, acquiring an old book is its rebirth. … Renewing the old world — this is the deepest drive in the collector's desire to acquire new things, and that is why the collector of older books is closer to the source of collecting than the person interested in bibliophile reprints.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone who achieves strives for totality, and the value of his achievement lies in that totality—that is, in the fact that the whole, undivided nature of a human being should be expressed in his achievement. But when determined by our society, as we see it today, achievement does not express a totality; it is completely fragmented and derivative. It is not uncommon for the community to be the site where a joint and covert struggle is waged against higher ambitions and more personal goals. ... The socially relevant achievement of the average person serves in the vast majority of cases to repress the original and nonderivative, inner aspirations of the human being.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nirgends erweist sich einem Kunstwerk oder einer Kunstform gegenüber die Rücksicht auf den Aufnehmenden für deren Erkenntnis fruchtbar. Nicht genug, dass jede Beziehung auf ein bestimmtes Publikum oder dessen Repräsentanten vom Wege abführt, ist sogar der Begriff eines "idealen" Aufnehmenden in allen kunsttheoretischen Erörterungen vom Übel, weil diese lediglich gehalten sind, Dasein und Wesen des Menschen überhaupt vorauszusetzen. So setzt auch die Kunst selbst dessen leibliches und geistiges Wesen voraus—seine Aufmerksamkeit aber in keinem ihrer Werke. Denn kein Gedicht gilt dem Leser, kein Bild dem Beschauer, keine Symphonie der Hörerschaft.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. 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 (1892–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As translated by Dennis Redmond (2001)