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Walter Benjamin Quotes

Biography

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist. He is best known for his seminal work "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936), which examines the effects of mass production on art and culture. Born in Berlin, Benjamin’s intellectual journey led him to explore diverse fields, including literature, theology, and media theory. more Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist. He is best known for his seminal work "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936), which examines the effects of mass production on art and culture. Born in Berlin, Benjamin’s intellectual journey led him to explore diverse fields, including literature, theology, and media theory. During the 1920s, he wrote "Critique of Violence" (1921), a significant essay questioning the relationship between law and violence. Another notable work, "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940), reflects his deep engagement with historical materialism and messianic time. Tragically, Benjamin's life ended in an apparent suicide in 1940 while fleeing Nazi persecution. less

Popular Quotes

"The man who cannot take sides must keep silent."
Tags: Wisdom, Ethics, Responsibility, Decision-making, Conflict
"The only historian capable of fanning the spark of hope"
Tags: Motivation, Inspiration, Reflection, Hope, Optimism
"The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes"
Tags: Humanity, History, Memory, Consequences, Culture
"The more perfect the work of art, the more it depends on chance in its existence "
Tags: Inspiration, Philosophy, Creativity, Existence, Art
"Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell "
Tags: Philosophy, Wisdom, Life, Existence, Meaning
"To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return "
Tags: Philosophy, Perception, Connection, Awareness, Presence
"The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out "
Tags: Wisdom, Truth, Literature, Art, Storytelling
"This enemy who attacks us at an unknown hour and steals our death when we are not yet detached from life — this enemy is a mouse."
Tags: Life, Metaphor, Death, Unknown, Unexpected
"For the sake of knowledge and a better-informed public, it is necessary to celebrate a cult of the book, even and especially in these times of the book's accelerated commodification."
Tags: Knowledge, Education, Reading, Information, Literacy
"Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby."
Tags: Literature, Metaphor, Writing, Books, Satire
"Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance — nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city — as one loses oneself in a forest — that calls for quite a different schooling."
Tags: Self-discovery, Metaphor, Adventure, Inner journey, City life
"The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses."
Tags: Perception, Subconscious, Psychoanalysis, Photography, Unconscious
"The truth must be touched in the way snakes are touched, with a stick."
Tags: Philosophy, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Truth
"Every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably"
Tags: History, Memory, Past, Recognition, Heritage
"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism"
Tags: Philosophy, Humanity, Progress, History, Paradox
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