---
title: "1 Critical theory Quotes By Walter Benjamin"
description: "1 Critical theory quotes by Walter Benjamin. Plus more from Walter Benjamin and more Critical theory sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/637/walter-benjamin-1723_art_the-expressions-of-those-moving-about-a_2160651.jpg"
---

> [“The expressions of those moving about a picture gallery show ill-concealed disappointment that they only find pictures there.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/the-expressions-of-those-moving-about-a-picture-gallery-show-ill/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/637/walter-benjamin-1723_art_the-expressions-of-those-moving-about-a_2160651.jpg)

## More by Walter Benjamin

> [All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/all-efforts-to-render-politics-aesthetic-culminate-in-one-thing-war/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [“The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than of convictions, and of such facts as have scarcely…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/the-construction-of-life-is-at-present-in-the-power-of-facts-far-more/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [“It should be pointed out that certain correlative concepts retain their meaning, and possibly their foremost significance, if they are referred exclusively to man.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/it-should-be-pointed-out-that-certain-correlative-concepts-retain/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [Allegories are, in the realm of thought, what ruins are in the realm of things.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/allegories-are-in-the-realm-of-thought-what-ruins-are-in-the-realm-of/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/things-are-only-mannequins-and-even-the-great-world-historical-events/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [“to great writers, finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they labor their entire lives.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/to-great-writers-finished-works-weigh-lighter-than-those-fragments-on/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/all-religions-have-honored-the-beggar-for-he-proves-that-in-a-matter/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/the-camera-introduces-us-to-unconscious-optics-as-does-psychoanalysis/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [During long periods of history, the mode of human sense perception changes with humanity’s entire mode of existence. The manner in which human sense…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/during-long-periods-of-history-the-mode-of-human-sense-perception/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [Melancholy betrays the world for the sake of knowledge. But in its tenacious self-absorption it embraces dead objects in its contemplation, in order to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/melancholy-betrays-the-world-for-the-sake-of-knowledge-but-in-its/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [For what is the program of the bourgeois parties? A bad poem on springtime, filled to bursting with metaphors.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/for-what-is-the-program-of-the-bourgeois-parties-a-bad-poem-on/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/there-was-the-pedestrian-who-wedged-himself-into-the-crowd-but-there/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out. Only the copied text thus commands the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/the-power-of-a-text-is-different-when-it-is-read-from-when-it-is/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/quotations-in-my-work-are-like-wayside-robbers-who-leap-out-armed-and/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

> [Each morning the day lies like a fresh shirt on our bed; this incomparably fine, incomparably tightly woven tissue of pure prediction fits us…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walter-benjamin/each-morning-the-day-lies-like-a-fresh-shirt-on-our-bed-this/)

[Walter Benjamin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walter-benjamin/)

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