Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Storytelling allows us to convey deeper truths and wisdom, but this art is fading away.
Walter Benjamin highlights a concern that the rich tradition of storytelling, which has historically served to convey profound truths and wisdom, is at risk of disappearing. As societal values shift away from the epic narratives that encapsulate human experiences and lessons, we may lose the depth and insights that storytelling has provided through generations.
Themes
StorytellingTruthWisdomArtNarrative
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of culture, one might say, 'As Walter Benjamin noted, the art of storytelling is fading, underscoring our need to revive it.'
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
I who once wrote songs with keen delight am now by sorrow driven to take up melancholy measures. Wounded Muses tell me what I must write, and elegiac verses bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could drive from me these faithful companions of my long journey. Poetry, which was once the glory of my happy and flourishing youth, is still my comfort in this misery of my old age.
BoethiusRead
I think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.
W. S. MerwinRead
That's how I make work. Along the way, I take notes, I read about history and popular culture. Sometimes I act out things in the studio. I go back to my mother's hair salon so I can hear three voices going all at once. I pull inspiration from everything.
Mark BradfordRead
I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?
Alan ArkinRead
Images of people, cities, and landscapes from the air tell a unique story about our personal space and how we relate to one another. I've always aimed to address the bigger picture and later trends. In many ways, what a photographer does is give others a chance to step back and look at their world and gain perspective on where we stand, and what that means.
Vincent LaforetRead
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing. I did that with 'World's Fair,' as with all of them. The inventions of the book come as discoveries.
E. L. DoctorowRead