Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the nature of giving and the limitations of intellectual understanding compared to the moral act of charity.
Walter Benjamin's quote suggests that while all religions have recognized the importance of helping those in need, the act of giving is more profound than mere intellect or moral principles can capture. It highlights the complexity of charity, which encompasses both the mundane act of giving and the sacred duty to support those less fortunate, transcending simple philosophical or moral reasoning.
Themes
CharityGivingMoralityPhilosophyReligion
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community service, one might use this quote to emphasize the deeper significance of helping others.
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
Perhaps you know some well-off families who do not seem to suffer from their riches. They do not overeat themselves; they find occupations to keep themselves in health; they do not worry about their position; they put their money into safe investments and are content with a low rate of interest; and they bring up their children to live simply and do useful work. But this means that they do not live like rich people at all, and might therefore just as well have ordinary incomes.
George Bernard ShawRead
The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.
Aldous HuxleyRead
Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.
Thomas HardyRead
To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people!
James H. ConeRead
I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide, but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist, every morning at the time of his visit, made me want to hang myself, realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat.
Antonin ArtaudRead