Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that both photography and psychoanalysis reveal hidden aspects of human experience.
Walter Benjamin's quote highlights how both the camera and psychoanalysis act as tools for revealing what lies beneath conscious awareness. Just as psychoanalysis uncovers repressed desires and motivations, the camera captures images that unveil truths about perception and reality that are not immediately visible to the human eye. This analogy speaks to the deeper understanding of how we interpret our surroundings and ourselves.
Themes
CameraPsychoanalysisUnconsciousPerceptionTruth
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the impact of visual media on psychology, one might quote this to illustrate the connection between perception and deeper cognitive processes.
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
Our present will become the past of other men and women. We depend on them to remember it with the complexity with which it was suffered. As others, once, depended on us.
Eavan BolandRead
I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?
John SteinbeckRead
When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of god.
Rob BellRead
All neurotics seek the religious
Carl JungRead
The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.
Anthony De MelloRead
But what is quackery? It is commonly an attempt to cure the diseases of a man by addressing his body alone. There is need of a physician who shall minister to both soul and body at once, that is, to man. Now he falls between two stools.
Henry David ThoreauRead