375 Quotes by Walter Benjamin

"Nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man’s. His gift in seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his memetic faculty does not play a decisive role."

"Articolare storicamente il passato non significa conoscerlo <>. Significa impadronirsi di un ricordo come esso balena nell'istante di un pericolo."

"Su público es más respetuoso que el de cualquier teatro o sala de conciertos. Eso tiene que ver con que en el circo la realidad tiene la palabra, no la apariencia. Aún sigue siendo más concebible que un señor del público le pida el programa a su vecino mientras Hamlet apuñala a Polonio, que mientras el acróbata realiza el doble salto mortal desde la cúpula."

"As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend."

"The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out."

"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."

"The abnormal, the sick, the vicious have become more and more interwoven into the violent culture of the United States. Into the way news is seen, into the way movies are seen."

"History breaks down into images, not into stories."

"We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector."

"Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom."