Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
Experience has taught me that the shallowest of communist platitudes contains more of a hierarchy of meaning than contemporary bourgeois profundity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that even simple communist ideas can convey deeper meanings compared to complex ideas from capitalist perspectives.
Walter Benjamin argues that the basic principles of communism, though they may appear simplistic or shallow on the surface, often encapsulate a deeper hierarchy of meaning and significance compared to the seemingly profound but ultimately empty statements often found in bourgeois or capitalist contexts. He critiques the idea that complexity equates to depth, highlighting that true insights can be hidden within straightforward ideologies that challenge the status quo.
Themes
CommunismBourgeoisMeaningPhilosophyIdeology
In practice
Example use cases
In a political discussion on ideologies, this quote can illustrate the depth found in seemingly simple beliefs.
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
Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent natural regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.
Frank HerbertRead
Every religious tradition is rooted in mysteries I don't pretend to understand, including claims about what happens after we die. But this I know for sure: as long as we're alive, choosing resurrection is always worth the risk.
Parker PalmerRead
Unity, to be real, must stand the severest strain without breaking.
Mahatma GandhiRead
Here in Britain, black people are disproportionately targeted, arrested and imprisoned for drug offences, while organised and violent crime are granted a massive source of revenue.
Owen JonesRead
The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead
All badness is spoiled goodness. A bad apple is a good apple that became rotten. Because evil has no capital of its own, it is a parasite that feeds on goodness.
Fulton J. SheenRead