“A blind determination to save the prestige of personal existence, rather than, through an impartial disdain for its impotence and entanglement, at least to detach it from the background of universal delusion, is triumphing almost everywhere.” GrowthExistenceDeterminationUniversalBlindBackgroundsDelusionPrestigeDisdainImpotenceEntanglement Book:One-Way Street Source: One-Way Street
“Bourgeois existence is the regime of private affairs . . . and the family is the rotten, dismal edifice in whose closets and crannies the most ignominious instincts are deposited. Mundane life proclaims the total subjugation of eroticism to privacy.” ExistenceInstinctAffairPrivacyRegimesClosetsRottenMundaneBourgeoisEdificeSubjugationMundane Life Book:Selected Writings: 1913-1926 Source: Selected Writings: 1913-1926
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” ArtHappensSpacePerfectExistenceElementsUniqueArt IsWorks Of ArtLackingTime And SpaceReproduction Book:Illuminations Source: Illuminations
“Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.” KnowsLittlesDoeSocialExistenceOpinionMachinesOilOver ItJointsTurbines Book:One-Way Street Source: One-Way Street
“During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense perception is organized, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well” HumansWellsLongHumanityExistencePeriodsCircumstancesPerceptionHistoricalDeterminedMediumsOrganizedAccomplishedSense Perception Book:Illuminations Source: Illuminations
