The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man. Walter Benjamin More Quotes by Walter Benjamin More Quotes From Walter Benjamin To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return. Walter Benjamin aurasmeanlooks I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. Walter Benjamin boredomorderbook How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books! Walter Benjamin citiesbooktravel Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction. Walter Benjamin strollersleapconviction 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. Walter Benjamin flashtimepast The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion. Walter Benjamin fashionideasart The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing. Walter Benjamin beautyhappinessideas The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out. Walter Benjamin epicdyingart Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception... as film is able to do today... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism. Walter Benjamin attitudegivingmean What we must demand from the photographer is the ability to put such a caption beneath his picture as will rescue it from the ravages of modishness and confer upon it a revolutionary use value. Walter Benjamin demandphotographeruse Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Walter Benjamin writingrunningideas For me, it was like this: pronounced antipathy to conversing about matters of practical life, the future, dates, politics. You are fixated on the intellectual sphere as a man possessed may be fixated on the sexual: under its spell, sucked into it. Walter Benjamin intellectualmaymen The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed. Walter Benjamin seedsfruitunderstood Not to find one's way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one's way in a city, as one loses one's way in a forest, requires some schooling. Street names must speak to the urban wanderer like the snapping of dry twigs, and little streets in the heart of the city must reflect the times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain valley. This art I acquired rather late in life; it fulfilled a dream, of which the first traces were labyrinths on the blotting papers in my school notebooks. Walter Benjamin notebookdreamart All the decisive blows are struck left-handed. Walter Benjamin left-handleftiesblow It is only for those without hope that hope is given. Walter Benjamin without-hopegiven 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. Walter Benjamin musicalwovenwriting If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-destroying; if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them; if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood Walter Benjamin guiltlawblood You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses. Walter Benjamin cannabispathrose The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions. Walter Benjamin powerlife-isfacts
