The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

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.

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.

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceived a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistably propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.

Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.