Quotes from WALTER BENJAMIN

For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector - and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be - ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.

The point is that in society everybody must answer the question of what he is—as distinct from the question of who he is—

Noch bei der höchstvollendeten Reproduktion fällt eines aus: das Hier und Jetzt des Kunstwerks – sein einmaliges Dasein an dem Orte, an dem es sich befindet.

Si los paseantes de Poe arrojan todavía vistazos carentes de sentido en todas direcciones, los contemporáneos se ven obligados a prestar su máxima atención a las señales viales. De tal manera es que la técnica subyugaba al aparato sensorial humano a un arduo entrenamiento, hasta que llegó el momento en que el cine tuvo correspondencia con una novedosa y perentoria necesidad de estimulación.

In einem sind pornographische Bücher wie alle andern: darin nämlich, daß sie auf Schrift und Sprache gegründet sind.

It is reasonable to assume that it is just as hard for rich people grown poor to believe in their poverty as it is for poor people turned rich to believe in their wealth; the former seem carried away by a recklessness of which they are totally unaware, the latter seem possessed by a stinginess which actually is nothing but the old ingrained fear of what the next day may bring.

It is true that countless facades of the city stand exactly as they stood in my childhood. Yet I do not encounter my childhood in their contemplation. My gaze has brushed them too often since, too often they have been in the décor and theatre of my walks and concerns.

Der gesamte Bereich der Echtheit entzieht sich der technischen – und natürlich nicht nur der technischen – Reproduzierbarkeit.

To read what was never written.' Such reading is the most ancient: reading before all languages, from the entrails, the stars, or dances. Later the mediating link of a new kind of reading, of runes and hieroglyphs, came into use.

The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room; only one activity: clearing away.

Language communicates the linguistic being of things. The clearest manifestation of this being, however, is language itself. The answer to the question ' What does language communicate?' is therefore 'All language communicates itself.

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.

Die Echtheit einer Sache ist der Inbegriff alles von Ursprung her an ihr Tradierbaren, von ihrer materiellen Dauer bis zu ihrer geschichtlichen Zeugenschaft.

Freud's fundamental thought, on which these remarks are based, is formulated by the assumption that "consciousness comes into being at the site of a memory trace.

He who cannot take sides should keep silent.

A child in his nightshirt cannot be prevailed upon to greet an arriving visitor.

The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.3

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

El éxtasis del habitante metropolitano no consiste tanto en un romance a primera vista como en uno a "última vista", por así decirlo; se trata de un adiós definitivo, coincidente en los versos con el momento encantador.

technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind.

Duhamel calls the movie "a pastime for helots, a diversion for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who are consumed by their worries a spectacle which requires no concentration and presupposes no intelligence which kindles no light in the heart and awakens no hope other than the ridiculous one of someday becoming a 'star' in Los Angeles.

El camino propio de quien teme llegar a la meta traza fácilmente un laberinto

A verdadeira imagem do passado perpassa, veloz. O passado só se deixa ficar, como imagem que relampeja irreversivelmente, no momento em que é reconhecido.

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