Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.
Walter BenjaminThe 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 BenjaminThe film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.
Walter Benjamin[Photography] has become more and more subtle, more and more modern, and the result is that it is now incapable of photographing a tenement or a rubbish heap without transfiguring it. Not to mention a river dam or electric cable factory: in front of these, photography can now only say, How beautiful!
Walter BenjaminLike ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.
Walter BenjaminThe destructive character knows only one watchword: make room. And only one activity: clearing away. The destructive character is young and cheerful. For destroying rejuvenates, because it clears away the traces of our own age; it cheers, because everything cleared away means to the destroyer a complete reduction, indeed a rooting out, of his own condition.
Walter Benjamin