Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
Allegories are, in the realm of thought, what ruins are in the realm of things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Allegories reflect truths similarly to how ruins embody the remnants of the past.
Walter Benjamin's quote suggests that allegories serve as a representation of deeper ideas and concepts in the mind, akin to ruins that provide insight into former structures and civilizations. Just as ruins are vestiges of history that hint at the grandeur of what once was, allegories encapsulate complex thoughts and moral insights, inviting reflection and understanding of the human experience.
Themes
AllegoryThoughtRuinsPhilosophyMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on literary analysis, I might use this quote to illustrate the importance of allegory in understanding deeper themes.
More from Walter Benjamin
All quotes →The illiterate of the future will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph.
Walter BenjaminRead
If mythic violence is lawmaking, divine violence is law-destroying; if the former sets boundaries, the latter boundlessly destroys them; if mythic violence brings at once guilt and retribution, divine power only expiates; if the former threatens, the latter strikes; if the former is bloody, the latter is lethal without spilling blood
Walter BenjaminRead
Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.
Walter BenjaminRead
Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.
Walter BenjaminRead
I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.
Walter BenjaminRead
Similar quotes
Out of Mahat comes universal egoism.
Swami VivekanandaRead
Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.
Carl SaganRead
We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the most prominent instrument for administering racism. But the racism doesn't actually come from the criminal justice system.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.
Thomas JeffersonRead
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity.
Elizabeth GaskellRead