Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
What has been forgotten is never something purely individual. Everything forgotten mingles with what has been forgotten of the prehistoric world, forms countless, uncertain, changing compounds, yielding a constant flow of new, strange products.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that what we forget is interconnected with larger human history and experiences, creating a continuous transformation of ideas and memories.
Walter Benjamin's quote reflects on the nature of memory and forgetting, proposing that our individual memories are not isolated. Instead, they intertwine with collective historical experiences, leading to an ever-evolving synthesis of thoughts and ideas that result in new insights and concepts. This interplay emphasizes that our understanding of the past is dynamic, and what we forget can still influence contemporary thought and creativity.
Themes
MemoryForgettingHistoryCollectiveTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of historical events on current culture, one might use this quote to emphasize the interconnectedness of memory and collective experiences.
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
Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don't believe it. Seek through the legislative halls of America and find, if you can, the Government. In the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent, as before.
Voltairine De CleyreRead
How quickly passes away the glory of this world.
Thomas A KempisRead
I am neither male nor female, nor am I sexless. I am the Peaceful One, whose form is self-effulgent, powerful radiance.
Guru NanakRead
I have always knocked at the door of that wonderful and terrible enigma which is life.
Eugenio MontaleRead
Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong.
Daniel O'ConnellRead
Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad.
Norman O. BrownRead