“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. Forwhat one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one’s future must be hewn.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Experience
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“Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph…. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Truth
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“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment bythe public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Art
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“Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Absence
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“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Beauty
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“The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Relationship
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“Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Creation
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“To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: War
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“The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Photography
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“Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Criticism
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“Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Giving
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“The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.”
Walter Benjamin
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Wisdom
