Walter Benjamin Quotes
Walter Benjamin was an early 20th-century German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist, whose work has become one of the most studied bodies of writing in the history of cultural criticism. He was loosely associated with the Frankfurt School and developed an idiosyncratic philosophy combining Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and a redemptive philosophy of history. The quotes below are attributed to Walter Benjamin, organized by topic.
Browse Walter Benjamin by topic
Walter Benjamin on Death
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“Zur Verknechtung der Sprache im Geschwätz tritt die Verknechtung der Dinge in der Narretei fast als deren unausbleibliche Folge .”
The enslavement of language in prattle is joined by the enslavement of things in folly almost as its inevitable consequence. "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), p. 72
Walter Benjamin on God
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“Nothing is so hateful to the philistine as the " dreams of his youth." ... For what appeared to him in his dreams was the voice of the spirit , calling him once, as it does everyone. It is of this that youth always reminds him, eternally and ominously. That is why he is antagonistic toward youth.”
Experience" (1913) as translated by L. Spencer and S. Jost, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), pp. 4-5
Walter Benjamin on Knowledge
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“In what time does man live? The thinkers have always known that he does not live in any time at all. The immortality of thoughts and deeds banishes him to a timeless realm at whose heart an inscrutable death lies in wait. ... Devoured by the countless demands of the moment, time slipped away from him; the medium in which the pure melody of his youth would swell was destroyed. The fulfilled tranqui”
The Metaphysics of Youth," in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), pp. 10-11 -
“Jede Äußerung menschlichen Geisteslebens kann als eine Art der Sprache aufgefaßt werden, und diese Auffassung erschließt nach Art einer wahrhaften Methode überall neue Fragestellungen.”
Every expression of human mental life can be understood as a kind of language, and this understanding, in the manner of a true method, everywhere raises new questions. "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), p. 62 -
“The enslavement of language in prattle is joined by the enslavement of things in folly almost as its inevitable consequence. "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), p. 72”
Zur Verknechtung der Sprache im Geschwätz tritt die Verknechtung der Dinge in der Narretei fast als deren unausbleibliche Folge . -
“I would like to metamorphose into a mouse-mountain.”
Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline (1927-1934, English translation 1997)
Walter Benjamin on Life
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Attributed to Walter Benjamin:
“The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.”
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“Because he never raises his eyes to the great and the meaningful, the philistine has taken experience as his gospel. It has become for him a message about life's commonness. But he has never grasped that there exists something other than experience, that there are values—inexperienceable—which we serve.”
Experience" (1913) as translated by L. Spencer and S. Jost, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), p. 4 -
“Every expression of human mental life can be understood as a kind of language, and this understanding, in the manner of a true method, everywhere raises new questions. "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), translated by E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings , Vol. 1 (1996), p. 62”
Jede Äußerung menschlichen Geisteslebens kann als eine Art der Sprache aufgefaßt werden, und diese Auffassung erschließt nach Art einer wahrhaften Methode überall neue Fragestellungen.
Walter Benjamin on Mind
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“Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.”
p. 91 -
Attributed to Walter Benjamin:
“Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theatre.”
Walter Benjamin on Politics
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“There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”
Es ist niemals ein Dokument der Kultur, ohne zugleich ein solches der Barbarei zu sein. -
Attributed to Walter Benjamin:
“All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.”
Walter Benjamin on Time
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Attributed to Walter Benjamin:
“History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homogeneous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of the now.”
Walter Benjamin on Truth
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Attributed to Walter Benjamin:
“Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought.”
Walter Benjamin on Virtue
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Attributed to Walter Benjamin:
“It is more arduous to honour the memory of the nameless than that of the renowned.”