The crowd is the veil through which the familiar city beckons to the flâneur as phantasmagoria-now a landscape, now a room.

These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

Every image of the past that is not recognised by the present as one of its own threatens to disappear irretrievably.

In other words, the unique value of the "authentic" work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty.

How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!

All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.

All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.