---
title: "17 Walter Benjamin Quotes by 16 authors"
description: "Browse 17 Walter Benjamin quotes by 16 authors. Discover the best Walter Benjamin sayings and thoughts."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72e/terry-eagleton-1660_change_the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-h_391811.png"
---

> [The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terry-eagleton/the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-had-the-curious-notion-that-we/)

[Terry Eagleton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/terry-eagleton/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72e/terry-eagleton-1660_change_the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-h_391811.png)

> [Giorgio Agamben is possibly the most delicate and probing thinker since Walter Benjamin.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/avital-ronell/giorgio-agamben-is-possibly-the-most-delicate-and-probing-thinker/)

[Avital Ronell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/avital-ronell/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/373/avital-ronell-58616_benjamin_giorgio-agamben-is-possibly-the-most-del_152909.jpg)

> [I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations and lists: people as…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/i-was-fascinated-by-quotations-and-lists-and-then-i-noticed-that/)

[Susan Sontag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/susan-sontag/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d32/susan-sontag-332_borges_i-was-fascinated-by-quotations-and-lists_2208096.jpg)

> [Walter Benjamin has this notion of the angel of history and in a way that's paradoxical itself. We don't have angels in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/steve-stern/walter-benjamin-has-this-notion-of-the-angel-of-history-and-in-a-way/)

[Steve Stern](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/steve-stern/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1ca/steve-stern-58445_angel_walter-benjamin-has-this-notion-of-the-a_811237.jpg)

> [“(Mind you, according to Walter Benjamin, the twentieth century’s great philosopher of collecting, browsing and what we’d now call vintage shopping, ‘the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-reynolds/mind-you-according-to-walter-benjamin-the-twentieth-century-s-great/)

[Simon Reynolds](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simon-reynolds/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a31/simon-reynolds-37167_book_mind-you-according-to-walter-benjamin-th_867025.jpg)

> [An exciting and yet highly lucid account of the formation and significance of Karl Kraus's modernist journalism, an activity that Walter Benjamin…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/istvan-deak/an-exciting-and-yet-highly-lucid-account-of-the-formation-and/)

Istvan Deak

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f9/istvan-deak-244164_accounts_an-exciting-and-yet-highly-lucid-account_1533463.jpg)

> [“Briskly aestheticizing politics, this predecessor of today’s live-streaming militants outlined a likely endgame for a world in which, as Walter Benjamin wrote,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/briskly-aestheticizing-politics-this-predecessor-of-today-s-live/)

[Pankaj Mishra](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pankaj-mishra/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/751/pankaj-mishra-2875_politics_briskly-aestheticizing-politics-this-pre_405995.jpg)

> [“Reading Proust nearly silenced Virginia Woolf. She loved his novel, but loved it rather too much. There wasn’t enough wrong with it—a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alain-de-botton/reading-proust-nearly-silenced-virginia-woolf-she-loved-his-novel-but/)

[Alain de Botton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alain-de-botton/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1fb/alain-de-botton-221_books_reading-proust-nearly-silenced-virginia_1845373.jpg)

> [Walter Benjamin knew that the break in tradition and loss of authority which occurred in his lifetime were irreparable, and he concluded…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/hannah-arendt/walter-benjamin-knew-that-the-break-in-tradition-and-loss-of/)

[Hannah Arendt](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/hannah-arendt/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ab/hannah-arendt-610_authority_walter-benjamin-knew-that-the-break-in-t_3157910.jpg)

> [ At any rate, nothing was more characteristic of him \[Walter Benjamin\] in the thirties than the little notebooks with black covers which… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/hannah-arendt/at-any-rate-nothing-was-more-characteristic-of-him-walter-benjamin-in/)

[Hannah Arendt](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/hannah-arendt/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/865/hannah-arendt-610_black_at-any-rate-nothing-was-more-characteris_1480236.jpg)

> [“The research projects that I have recently undertaken have shown me that our modern societies, which claim to be secular, are, on…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/the-research-projects-that-i-have-recently-undertaken-have-shown-me/)

[Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ab/anonymous-1_religion_the-research-projects-that-i-have-recent_551680.jpg)

> [Walter Benjamin talks about art losing its original "aura" in an age of mechanical reproduction. In writing memoir, we're taking something that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucas-mann/walter-benjamin-talks-about-art-losing-its-original-aura-in-an-age-of/)

[Lucas Mann](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/lucas-mann/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9fd/lucas-mann-50072_age_walter-benjamin-talks-about-art-losing-i_2202947.jpg)

> [Bertrand Russell said, 'Electricity is not a thing like St. Paul's Cathedral; it is a way in which things behave.' And it's…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mary-jo-bang/bertrand-russell-said-electricity-is-not-a-thing-like-st-paul-s/)

[Mary Jo Bang](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mary-jo-bang/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/03a/mary-jo-bang-35145_ambiguous_bertrand-russell-said-electricity-is-not_1790976.jpg)

> [“It" is the idea of him or her that resides in us--inspired by the "Something" in them, as Pope has it, "That…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/joseph-roach/it-is-the-idea-of-him-or-her-that-resides-in-us-inspired-by-the/)

Joseph Roach

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7cb/joseph-roach-75942_alexander-pope_it-is-the-idea-of-him-or-her-that-reside_537615.jpg)

> [“The difference between a person who appreciates books, even loves them, and a collector is not only degrees of affection, I realized.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/allison-hoover-bartlett/the-difference-between-a-person-who-appreciates-books-even-loves-them/)

[Allison Hoover Bartlett](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/allison-hoover-bartlett/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef6/allison-hoover-bartlett-45441_books_the-difference-between-a-person-who-appr_395937.jpg)

> [“Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance—nothing more," says the twentieth-century philosopher-essayist…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/not-to-find-one-s-way-in-a-city-may-well-be-uninteresting-and-banal/)

[Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d1/rebecca-solnit-569_discovery_not-to-find-one-s-way-in-a-city-may-well_1721089.jpg)

> [“Cities have often been compared to language: you can read a city, it’s said, as you read a book. But the metaphor…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/valeria-luiselli/cities-have-often-been-compared-to-language-you-can-read-a-city-it-s-2/)

[Valeria Luiselli](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/valeria-luiselli/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/734/valeria-luiselli-27018_books_cities-have-often-been-compared-to-langu_2369706.jpg)

```json
{
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@graph": [
        {
            "@type": "ItemList",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/#itemlist",
            "name": "Walter Benjamin Quotes",
            "numberOfItems": 17,
            "itemListElement": [
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 1,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Terry Eagleton"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/terry-eagleton/the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-had-the-curious-notion-that-we/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72e/terry-eagleton-1660_change_the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-h_391811.png",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72e/terry-eagleton-1660_change_the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-h_391811.png",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72e/terry-eagleton-1660_change_the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-h_391811.png",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us…” — Terry Eagleton",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 2,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Giorgio Agamben is possibly the most delicate and probing thinker since Walter Benjamin.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Avital Ronell"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/avital-ronell/giorgio-agamben-is-possibly-the-most-delicate-and-probing-thinker/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/373/avital-ronell-58616_benjamin_giorgio-agamben-is-possibly-the-most-del_152909.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/373/avital-ronell-58616_benjamin_giorgio-agamben-is-possibly-the-most-del_152909.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/373/avital-ronell-58616_benjamin_giorgio-agamben-is-possibly-the-most-del_152909.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Giorgio Agamben is possibly the most delicate and probing thinker since Walter Benjamin.” — Avital Ronell",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 3,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations and lists: people as different as Borges and Walter Benjamin, Novalis and Godard.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Susan Sontag"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/susan-sontag/i-was-fascinated-by-quotations-and-lists-and-then-i-noticed-that/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d32/susan-sontag-332_borges_i-was-fascinated-by-quotations-and-lists_2208096.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d32/susan-sontag-332_borges_i-was-fascinated-by-quotations-and-lists_2208096.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d32/susan-sontag-332_borges_i-was-fascinated-by-quotations-and-lists_2208096.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations…” — Susan Sontag",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 4,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Walter Benjamin has this notion of the angel of history and in a way that's paradoxical itself. We don't have angels in history anymore. We don't believe in these mythical creatures anymore.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Steve Stern"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/steve-stern/walter-benjamin-has-this-notion-of-the-angel-of-history-and-in-a-way/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1ca/steve-stern-58445_angel_walter-benjamin-has-this-notion-of-the-a_811237.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1ca/steve-stern-58445_angel_walter-benjamin-has-this-notion-of-the-a_811237.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1ca/steve-stern-58445_angel_walter-benjamin-has-this-notion-of-the-a_811237.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Walter Benjamin has this notion of the angel of history and in a way that's paradoxical itself. We don't…” — Steve Stern",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 5,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“(Mind you, according to Walter Benjamin, the twentieth century’s great philosopher of collecting, browsing and what we’d now call vintage shopping, ‘the non-reading of books’ is a defining characteristic of serious bibliomaniacs; he cites Anatole France, who blithely admitted that he’d barely read one-tenth of the books in his library.)”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Simon Reynolds"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simon-reynolds/mind-you-according-to-walter-benjamin-the-twentieth-century-s-great/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a31/simon-reynolds-37167_book_mind-you-according-to-walter-benjamin-th_867025.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a31/simon-reynolds-37167_book_mind-you-according-to-walter-benjamin-th_867025.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a31/simon-reynolds-37167_book_mind-you-according-to-walter-benjamin-th_867025.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“(Mind you, according to Walter Benjamin, the twentieth century’s great philosopher of collecting, browsing…” — Simon Reynolds",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 6,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "An exciting and yet highly lucid account of the formation and significance of Karl Kraus's modernist journalism, an activity that Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem regarded as the most Jewish writing in the German language. The Anti-Journalist is the best book I have seen on this engaging topic.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Istvan Deak"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/istvan-deak/an-exciting-and-yet-highly-lucid-account-of-the-formation-and/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f9/istvan-deak-244164_accounts_an-exciting-and-yet-highly-lucid-account_1533463.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f9/istvan-deak-244164_accounts_an-exciting-and-yet-highly-lucid-account_1533463.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/8f9/istvan-deak-244164_accounts_an-exciting-and-yet-highly-lucid-account_1533463.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“An exciting and yet highly lucid account of the formation and significance of Karl Kraus's modernist…” — Istvan Deak",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 7,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“Briskly aestheticizing politics, this predecessor of today’s live-streaming militants outlined a likely endgame for a world in which, as Walter Benjamin wrote, the self-alienation of humankind ‘has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order’.”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Pankaj Mishra"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pankaj-mishra/briskly-aestheticizing-politics-this-predecessor-of-today-s-live/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/751/pankaj-mishra-2875_politics_briskly-aestheticizing-politics-this-pre_405995.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/751/pankaj-mishra-2875_politics_briskly-aestheticizing-politics-this-pre_405995.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/751/pankaj-mishra-2875_politics_briskly-aestheticizing-politics-this-pre_405995.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Briskly aestheticizing politics, this predecessor of today’s live-streaming militants outlined a likely…” — Pankaj Mishra",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 8,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“Reading Proust nearly silenced Virginia Woolf. She loved his novel, but loved it rather too much. There wasn’t enough wrong with it—a crushing recognition when one considers Walter Benjamin’s assessment of why people become writers: because they are unable to find a book already written that they are completely happy with. And”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Alain de Botton"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alain-de-botton/reading-proust-nearly-silenced-virginia-woolf-she-loved-his-novel-but/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1fb/alain-de-botton-221_books_reading-proust-nearly-silenced-virginia_1845373.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1fb/alain-de-botton-221_books_reading-proust-nearly-silenced-virginia_1845373.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1fb/alain-de-botton-221_books_reading-proust-nearly-silenced-virginia_1845373.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Reading Proust nearly silenced Virginia Woolf. She loved his novel, but loved it rather too much. There…” — Alain de Botton",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 9,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Walter Benjamin knew that the break in tradition and loss of authority which occurred in his lifetime were irreparable, and he concluded that he had to discover new ways of dealing with the past. In this he became a master when he discovered that the transmissibility of the past had been replaced by the citability and that in place of its authority there had arisen a strange power to settle down, piecemeal, in the present and to deprive it of ‘peace of mind,’ the mindless peace of complacency.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Hannah Arendt"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/hannah-arendt/walter-benjamin-knew-that-the-break-in-tradition-and-loss-of/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ab/hannah-arendt-610_authority_walter-benjamin-knew-that-the-break-in-t_3157910.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ab/hannah-arendt-610_authority_walter-benjamin-knew-that-the-break-in-t_3157910.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/0ab/hannah-arendt-610_authority_walter-benjamin-knew-that-the-break-in-t_3157910.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Walter Benjamin knew that the break in tradition and loss of authority which occurred in his lifetime were…” — Hannah Arendt",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 10,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "At any rate, nothing was more characteristic of him [Walter Benjamin] in the thirties than the little notebooks with black covers which he always carried with him and in which he tirelessly entered in the form of quotations what daily living and reading netted him in the way of \"pearls\" and \"coral.\" On occasion he read from them aloud, showed them around like items from a choice and precious collection.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Hannah Arendt"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/hannah-arendt/at-any-rate-nothing-was-more-characteristic-of-him-walter-benjamin-in/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/865/hannah-arendt-610_black_at-any-rate-nothing-was-more-characteris_1480236.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/865/hannah-arendt-610_black_at-any-rate-nothing-was-more-characteris_1480236.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/865/hannah-arendt-610_black_at-any-rate-nothing-was-more-characteris_1480236.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“At any rate, nothing was more characteristic of him [Walter Benjamin] in the thirties than the little…” — Hannah Arendt",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 11,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“The research projects that I have recently undertaken have shown me that our modern societies, which claim to be secular, are, on the contrary, governed by secularised theological concepts, which act all the more powerfully because we are not conscious of their existence. We will never grasp what is going on today unless we understand that capitalism is, in reality, a religion. And, as Walter Benjamin said, it is the fiercest of all religions because it does not allow for atonement...”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Anonymous"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/the-research-projects-that-i-have-recently-undertaken-have-shown-me/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ab/anonymous-1_religion_the-research-projects-that-i-have-recent_551680.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ab/anonymous-1_religion_the-research-projects-that-i-have-recent_551680.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ab/anonymous-1_religion_the-research-projects-that-i-have-recent_551680.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“The research projects that I have recently undertaken have shown me that our modern societies, which claim…” — Anonymous",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 12,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Walter Benjamin talks about art losing its original \"aura\" in an age of mechanical reproduction. In writing memoir, we're taking something that happened in a particular moment and meant something at that time, and we're trying to capture it to mass reproduce it for readers. So of course something is lost. And when we edit that material, we're getting even further from that aura, but toward something else that is potentially vital.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Lucas Mann"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lucas-mann/walter-benjamin-talks-about-art-losing-its-original-aura-in-an-age-of/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9fd/lucas-mann-50072_age_walter-benjamin-talks-about-art-losing-i_2202947.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9fd/lucas-mann-50072_age_walter-benjamin-talks-about-art-losing-i_2202947.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/9fd/lucas-mann-50072_age_walter-benjamin-talks-about-art-losing-i_2202947.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Walter Benjamin talks about art losing its original \"aura\" in an age of mechanical reproduction. In writing…” — Lucas Mann",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 13,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "Bertrand Russell said, 'Electricity is not a thing like St. Paul's Cathedral; it is a way in which things behave.' And it's not 'they' who say, but Walter Benjamin who said, 'Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness, with the base and the banal.' In September, 1940, Benjamin died under ambiguous circumstances in the French-Spanish border town of Portbou, while attempting to flee the Nazis.",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Mary Jo Bang"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mary-jo-bang/bertrand-russell-said-electricity-is-not-a-thing-like-st-paul-s/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/03a/mary-jo-bang-35145_ambiguous_bertrand-russell-said-electricity-is-not_1790976.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/03a/mary-jo-bang-35145_ambiguous_bertrand-russell-said-electricity-is-not_1790976.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/03a/mary-jo-bang-35145_ambiguous_bertrand-russell-said-electricity-is-not_1790976.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Bertrand Russell said, 'Electricity is not a thing like St. Paul's Cathedral; it is a way in which things…” — Mary Jo Bang",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 14,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“It\" is the idea of him or her that resides in us--inspired by the \"Something\" in them, as Pope has it, \"That gives us back the Image of our Mind.\" Although the perception of It must be excited by some extraordinary perturbation in the looks and personality of the adored, the aura that It broadcasts arises not merely from the singularity of an original, as Walter Benjamin supposed, but also from the fabulous success of its reproducibility in the imaginations of many others, charmed exponentially by the number of its copies. The one-of-kind item must become a type, a replicable role-icon of itself--from \"a Charles Hart\" or \"a Nell Gwyn\" to \"a Mary Pickford\" or \"a Douglas Fairbanks\"--in order to unleash the Pygmalion effect in the hearts and minds of the fans, making the idea of him or her theirs--as much or more than anything else they might call their own.”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Joseph Roach"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/joseph-roach/it-is-the-idea-of-him-or-her-that-resides-in-us-inspired-by-the/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7cb/joseph-roach-75942_alexander-pope_it-is-the-idea-of-him-or-her-that-reside_537615.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7cb/joseph-roach-75942_alexander-pope_it-is-the-idea-of-him-or-her-that-reside_537615.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7cb/joseph-roach-75942_alexander-pope_it-is-the-idea-of-him-or-her-that-reside_537615.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“It\" is the idea of him or her that resides in us--inspired by the \"Something\" in them, as Pope has it, \"That…” — Joseph Roach",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 15,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“The difference between a person who appreciates books, even loves them, and a collector is not only degrees of affection, I realized. For the former, the bookshelf is a kind of memoir; there are my childhood books, my college books, my favorite novels, my inexplicable choices. Many matchmaking and social networking websites offer a place for members to list what they're reading for just this reason: books can reveal a lot about a person. This is particularly true of the collector, for whom the bookshelf is a reflection not just of what he has read but profoundly of who he is: 'Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they can come alive in him; it is he who comes alive in them,' wrote cultural critic Walter Benjamin.”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Allison Hoover Bartlett"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/allison-hoover-bartlett/the-difference-between-a-person-who-appreciates-books-even-loves-them/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef6/allison-hoover-bartlett-45441_books_the-difference-between-a-person-who-appr_395937.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef6/allison-hoover-bartlett-45441_books_the-difference-between-a-person-who-appr_395937.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef6/allison-hoover-bartlett-45441_books_the-difference-between-a-person-who-appr_395937.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“The difference between a person who appreciates books, even loves them, and a collector is not only degrees…” — Allison Hoover Bartlett",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 16,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance—nothing more,\" says the twentieth-century philosopher-essayist Walter Benjamin. “But to lose oneself in a city—as one loses oneself in a forest—that calls for quite a different schooling.” To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography.”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Rebecca Solnit"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/not-to-find-one-s-way-in-a-city-may-well-be-uninteresting-and-banal/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d1/rebecca-solnit-569_discovery_not-to-find-one-s-way-in-a-city-may-well_1721089.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d1/rebecca-solnit-569_discovery_not-to-find-one-s-way-in-a-city-may-well_1721089.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6d1/rebecca-solnit-569_discovery_not-to-find-one-s-way-in-a-city-may-well_1721089.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Not to find one’s way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance—nothing more,\"…” — Rebecca Solnit",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 17,
                    "item": {
                        "@type": "Quotation",
                        "text": "“Cities have often been compared to language: you can read a city, it’s said, as you read a book. But the metaphor can be inverted. The journeys we make during the reading of a book trace out, in some way, the private spaces we inhabit. There are texts that will always be our dead-end streets; fragments that will be bridges; words that will be like the scaffolding that protects fragile constructions. T.S. Eliot: a plant growing in the debris of a ruined building; Salvador Novo: a tree-lined street transformed into an expressway; Tomas Segovia: a boulevard, a breath of air; Roberto Bolano: a rooftop terrace; Isabel Allende: a (magically real) shopping mall; Gilles Deleuze: a summit; and Jacques Derrida: a pothole. Robert Walser: a chink in the wall, for looking through to the other side; Charles Baudelaire: a waiting room; Hannah Arendt: a tower, an Archimedean point; Martin Heidegger: a cul-de-sac; Walter Benjamin: a one-way street walked down against the flow.”",
                        "creator": {
                            "@type": "Person",
                            "name": "Valeria Luiselli"
                        },
                        "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/valeria-luiselli/cities-have-often-been-compared-to-language-you-can-read-a-city-it-s-2/",
                        "image": {
                            "@type": "ImageObject",
                            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/734/valeria-luiselli-27018_books_cities-have-often-been-compared-to-langu_2369706.jpg",
                            "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/734/valeria-luiselli-27018_books_cities-have-often-been-compared-to-langu_2369706.jpg",
                            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/734/valeria-luiselli-27018_books_cities-have-often-been-compared-to-langu_2369706.jpg",
                            "width": 1080,
                            "height": 1080,
                            "caption": "“Cities have often been compared to language: you can read a city, it’s said, as you read a book. But the…” — Valeria Luiselli",
                            "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
                            "creator": {
                                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "@type": "CollectionPage",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/#webpage",
            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/",
            "name": "Walter Benjamin Quotes",
            "isPartOf": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website"
            },
            "mainEntity": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/#itemlist"
            },
            "primaryImageOfPage": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/72e/terry-eagleton-1660_change_the-german-philosopher-walter-benjamin-h_391811.png"
            },
            "description": "Browse 17 Walter Benjamin quotes by 16 authors. Discover the best Walter Benjamin sayings and thoughts.",
            "breadcrumb": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/#breadcrumb"
            }
        },
        {
            "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/#breadcrumb",
            "itemListElement": [
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 1,
                    "name": "Home",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 2,
                    "name": "Quotes",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 3,
                    "name": "Topics",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/categories/"
                },
                {
                    "@type": "ListItem",
                    "position": 4,
                    "name": "Walter Benjamin Quotes",
                    "item": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/walter-benjamin/"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "@type": "WebSite",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website",
            "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/",
            "publisher": {
                "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization"
            }
        },
        {
            "@type": "Organization",
            "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization",
            "name": "SMS4Smile Quotes",
            "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/",
            "logo": {
                "@type": "ImageObject",
                "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/themes/sq/assets/icons/icon-512.png",
                "width": 512,
                "height": 512
            }
        }
    ]
}
```