[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 BenjaminDuring long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well
Walter BenjaminIdeas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].
Walter BenjaminThe concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe
Walter BenjaminAny translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information-hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.
Walter BenjaminThe art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Walter BenjaminI am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.
Walter BenjaminEven the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.
Walter BenjaminAll religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.
Walter BenjaminWork on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.
Walter BenjaminAs Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.
Walter BenjaminArt teaches us to see into things. Folk art and kitsch allow us to see outward from within things.
Walter BenjaminYou could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.
Walter BenjaminWe do not always proclaim loudly the most important thing we have to say. Nor do we always privately share it with those closest to us, our intimate friends, those who have been most devotedly ready to receive our confession.
Walter BenjaminLiving substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter Benjamin... [L]ess than at any time does a simple reproduction of reality tell us anything about reality. A photograph of the Krupp works or GEC yields almost nothing about those institutions. Reality proper has slipped into the functional. The reification of human relationships, the factory, let's say, no longer reveals these relationships. Therefore something has to be constructed, something artificial, something set up.
Walter BenjaminHow many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
Walter BenjaminDeath is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
Walter BenjaminExperience has taught me that the shallowest of communist platitudes contains more of a hierarchy of meaning than contemporary bourgeois profundity.
Walter Benjamin