History breaks down into images, not into stories.

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.

Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope.

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.

We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector.

All disgust is originally disgust at touching.