Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe
Interpretation
What this quote means
Progress arises from recognizing and addressing the disasters of the present situation.
Walter Benjamin suggests that the notion of progress cannot be divorced from the understanding of the crises and catastrophes that persist in society. When we accept the current state of affairs as normal or complacent, we inadvertently hinder true progress; instead, acknowledging the catastrophes of our time can drive meaningful change and innovation.
Themes
ProgressCatastropheChangeStatus QuoInnovation
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social reform, one might say, 'As Walter Benjamin stated, the concept of progress must acknowledge the catastrophes we face today.'
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
It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.
Winston ChurchillRead
Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed.
Charles SpurgeonRead
If you were an optimistic teen, then you'll be an optimist at 80. People's reactions to bad events are highly stable over a half century or more.
Martin SeligmanRead
No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.
Bob DylanRead
Terror cannot be finished by one war.
Yitzhak RabinRead
Lat take a cat, and fostre him wel with milk, And tendre flesh, and make his couche of silk, And let him seen a mous go by the wal; Anon he weyveth milk, and flesh, and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Swich appetyt hath he to ete a mous.
Geoffrey ChaucerRead