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"27 Walter Benjamin Quotes & Sayings

      German     /     View profile
Born: 15 July 1892. Died: 26 September 1940 | Philosopher | Critic | Essayist |

History is written by the victors.

History Written Victors By
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The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

Truly New Criticism Art
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Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.

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

Idea Share Good Beauty
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Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

Method Writing Buy Ways
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Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.

Ground Past Theatre Cities
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Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
Shock Affect Gifts Point
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The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.

Reality Scope Process Adjustment
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Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

Approach Baby Book Cannibal
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It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.

Public Opinion Judging Attitude
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The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.

True Instant Picture Image
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Work 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.

Textile Built Woven Composed
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To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

Able Aware Become Fright
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Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.
Books Public Quarrels
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The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

Hope Knowing Love Only
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It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.

Given Hope Only Sake
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Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.

Interest Judgments Matter Only
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The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.

Power Life Facts Present
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Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.

Conquers Destruction Ecstasy Frenzy
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The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

Truth Dying Wisdom Art
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Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.

Passion Borders Chaos Chaotic
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Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.

Away Bird Boredom Dream
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Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.

Authority Borrowed Death Everything
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Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

Armed Work Conviction Leap
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The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.

Character Destructive Feeling Life
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All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

Form Human Interpretation Knowledge
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He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.

Dresses Etiquette Like Lying
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Walter Benjamin Quotes & Sayings