“Marx says that revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But the situation may be quite different. Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake.” WorldHumansMayDifferentRaceSituationRevolutionTrainHuman RaceEmergenciesWorld HistoryBrakeGrabbingLocomotives Author:Walter Benjamin
“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.” MenMayMatterIntellectualPracticalsSpellsSpheresPossessedAntipathyPractical Life Book:On Hashish Source: On Hashish
“He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say.” MayAsksEventsThousandFortuneInertiaSubmissiveForfeitDexterityFortune Teller Book:Selected Writings: 1913-1926 Source: Selected Writings: 1913-1926
“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have at the moment of commemoration.” IfsYearsMayMadeMomentsFormLife IsStuffSpaceTalkingCasesStrangeMonthsAmountEternalFlowAutobiographyFleetingSequenceRecollectionHere I AmDiscontinuity Author:Walter Benjamin
“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 a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest.” WayWellsMayDifferentNamesSpeakLosesCitiesFeetStreetsIgnoranceOneselfBarsForestsRoofSchoolingCity LifeWanderersTwigsCities At Night Book:Selected Writings: 1927-1934 Source: Selected Writings: 1927-1934
“The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.” HeartMayMomentsPastLostMouthsHistorianVoidTidings Book:Illuminations Source: Illuminations
“He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say. He is impelled by inertia, rather than curiosity, and nothing is more unlike the submissive apathy with which he hears his fate revealed than the alert dexterity with which the man of courage lays hands on the future.” MenMayHandsAsksFateEventsHe ManThousandLaysFortuneCuriosityApathyProphecyInertiaSubmissiveForfeitDexterityFortune Teller Book:Selected Writings: 1913-1926 Source: Selected Writings: 1913-1926
