Walter Benjamin Quotes

German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892–1940)

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish literary critic and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and the Jewish mysticism of Gershom Scholem.

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Pen Names: Benedix Schönflies • Detlev Holz

Alternative Names: Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin

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The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.

Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. … For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form — it may be called fleeting or eternal — is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.

Man geht immer die gleichen Wege des Denkens wie vorher. Nur scheinen sie mit Rosen bestreut.

Im Kapitalismus ist eine Religion zu erblicken, d.h. der Kapitalismus dient essentiell der Befriedigung derselben Sorgen, Qualen, Unruhen, auf die ehemals die so genannten Religionen Antwort gaben.

The critic does not pass judgment on the work; rather, art itself passes judgment, either by taking up the work in the medium of criticism or by rejecting it and thereby appraising it as beneath all criticism.

History breaks down in images not into stories.