Quotes from WALTER BENJAMIN

History is made up of fragments and absences. What is left out is as significant as what is included.

Ser feliz significa poder tomar conciencia de uno mismo sin llevarse un susto.

Das Werk ist die Totenmaske der Konzeption.

Die Rede erobert den Gedanken, aber die Schrift beherrscht ihn.

Imperialistic war is a rebellion of technology which collects, in the form of "human material," the claims to which society has denied its natural material. Instead of draining rivers, society directs a human stream into a bed of trenches; instead of dropping seeds from airplanes, it drops incendiary bombs over cities; and through gas warfare the aura is abolished in a new way.

the images of my metropolitan childhood perhaps are capable, at their core, of preforming later historical experience' .

The storyteller: he is the man who could let the wick of his life be consumed completely by the gentle flame that is his story.

61I am prepared to... assert that inspiration has something in common with a convulsion, and that every sublime thought is accompanied by a more or less violent nervous shock which has its repercussions in the very core of the brain.

Em consequência, o romance não é significativo por descrever pedagogicamente um destino alheio, mas porque esse destino alheio, graças à chama que o consome, pode dar-nos o calor que não podemos encontrar em nosso próprio destino. O que seduz o leitor no romance é a esperança de aquecer sua vida gelada com a morte descrita no livro.

Of Honor without Fame/Of Greatness without Splendor/Of Dignity without Pay);

Articolare storicamente il passato non significa conoscerlo <>. Significa impadronirsi di un ricordo come esso balena nell'istante di un pericolo.

It is another nature that speaks to the camera than to the eye: 'other' above all in the sense that a space informed by human consciousness gives way to a space informed by the unconsciousness.

Like one who keeps afloat on a shipwreck by climbing to the top of a mast that is already crumbling. But from there he has a chance to give a signal leading to his rescue." —Walter Benjamin in a letter to Gerhard Scholem dated April 17, 1931

Even if Kafka did not pray—and this we do not know—he still possessed in the highest degree what Malebranche called the natural prayer of the soul: attentiveness. And in this attentiveness he included all living creatures, as saints include them in their prayers.

No more semblance or disemblance, no more God or Man, only an immanent logic of the principle of operativity.

Podría decirse que los proverbios son ruinas que están en el lugar de viejas historias, y donde, como la hiedra en la muralla, una moraleja trepa sobre un gesto

You admit that for the time being you do not want to accept communism 'as the solution for humanity.' But of course the issue is precisely to abolish the unproductive pretensions of solutions for humanity by means of the feasible findings of this very system; indeed, to give up entirely the immodest prospect of 'total' systems and at least to make the attempt to construct the days of humanity in just as loose a fashion as a rational person who has had a good night's sleep begins his day.

Indeed, is not the homecoming amateur with his vast number of artistic snaps more contented than the hunter, returning laden with the game which is only of value to the trader.

Paris est la grande salle de lecture d'une bibliothèque que traverse la Seine.

la función que tiene la memoria es la de proteger las impresiones, mientras que el recuerdo apunta a su disolución. La memoria es en esencia conservadora, en tanto que el recuerdo intenta destruir".

articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it "the way it really was" (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger.

There is no event or thing in either animate or inanimate nature that does not in some way partake of language.

the spoils are carried along in the procession. They are called cultural treasures, and a historical materialist views them with cautious detachment.

Instead of giving his own opinion, a great critic enables others to form their opinion on the basis of his critical analysis.