Quotes from WALTER BENJAMIN

Su público es más respetuoso que el de cualquier teatro o sala de conciertos. Eso tiene que ver con que en el circo la realidad tiene la palabra, no la apariencia. Aún sigue siendo más concebible que un señor del público le pida el programa a su vecino mientras Hamlet apuñala a Polonio, que mientras el acróbata realiza el doble salto mortal desde la cúpula.

A Dostoeivski le interesaba la psicología; sacó a la luz la parte criminal que hay en el hombre. A Brecht le interesa la política; saca a la luz la parte criminal que hay en el negocio.

The cult of remembrance of loved ones, absent or dead, offers a last refuge for the cult value of the picture.

Tekst jest kniej?, czytelnik - my?liwym. Szelest w zaro?lach: my?l ucieka, p?ochliwa dziczyzna. Cytat jest rozb?yskiem.

No início do século XX, a reprodução técnica tinha atingido um nível tal que começara a tornar objeto seu, não só a totalidade das obras de arte provenientes de épocas anteriores, e a submeter os seus efeitos às modificações mais profundas, como também a conquistar o seu próprio lugar entre os procedimentos artísticos.

Der Name ist das innerste Wesen der Sprache.

Paul Valéry pointed up in this sentence: Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.

The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, while the truly new is criticized with aversion.

The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.

God's transcendence is at an end. But he is not dead; he has been incorporated into human existence.

Anyone who cannot cope with life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate . . . but with his other hand he can jot down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different and more things than the others; after all, he is dead in his own lifetime and the real survivor." —Franz Kafka, Diaries, entry of October 19, 1921

At the entrance, a mailbox: last opportunity to make some sign to the world one is leaving.

Convencer es infructuoso.

In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semi-relaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an etude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds.

Bir insan? ancak onu ümitsizce seven tan?r.

The "meaning of life" is really the center about which the novel moves.

manifest themselves in this struggle as courage, humor, cunning, and fortitude. They have retroactive force and will constantly call in question every victory, past and present, of the rulers. As flowers turn toward the sun, by dint of a secret heliotropism the past strives to turn toward that sun which is rising in the sky of history. A historical materialist must be aware of this most inconspicuous of all transformations.

L'expérience de notre génération: le capitalisme ne mourra pas de mort naturelle

The righteous one is an advocate for creatures and at the same time their highest embodiment.

He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say

To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognise it 'the way it really was' (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.

A chronicler who recites events without distinguishing between major and minor ones acts in accordance with the following truth: nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history. To be sure, only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past--which is to say, only for the redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments…

the journalistic jargon of the newspaper is the highest expression of experiential poverty – a lesson that Benjamin learned from Karl Kraus.8 As Benjamin comments, 'every morning brings us the news of the globe and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories.

Clearly, this is at bottom the same ancient lament that the masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator.