50 quotes
There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.
In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist.
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
All purposeful manifestations of life, including their very purposiveness, in the final analysis have their end not in life but in the expression of its nature, in the representation of its significance.
The Task of the Translator (1920)
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
The Storyteller (1936)
Criticism and prophecy must be the two categories that meet in the salvation of the past
Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels [Origin of the German Mourning Play (1925)
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.
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room. And only one activity: clearing away. His need for fresh air and open space is stronger than any hatred.
If the original does not exist for the reader's sake, how could the translation be understood on the basis of this premise?
The Task of the Translator (1920)
The present, which, as a model of Messianic time, comprises the entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgment, coincides with the stature which the history of mankind has in the universe.
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
The enslavement of language in prattle is joined by the enslavement of things in folly almost as its inevitable consequence.
There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
This storm is what we call progress.
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
You follow the same paths of thought as before. Only, they appear strewn with roses.
Main features of my first impression of hashish (1927)
History breaks down in images not into stories.
Arcades Project (1927)
The mass is a matrix from which all traditional behavior toward works of art issues today in a new form. Quantity has been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the mode of participation.
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.
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)
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.
In the fields with which we are concerned knowledge exists only in lightning flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterwards.
Arcades Project (1927)
Capitalism is presumably the first case of a blaming, rather than a repenting cult. ... An enormous feeling of guilt not itself knowing how to repent, grasps at the cult, not in order to repent for this guilt, but to make it universal, to hammer it into consciousness and finally and above all to include God himself in this guilt.
Capitalism as Religion (1921)