Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects how the quest for knowledge through reading can lead to new insights and experiences.
In this quote, Walter Benjamin expresses the profound connection between the pursuit of knowledge and the exploration of the world. He suggests that through reading and engaging with books, one can uncover new perspectives, ideas, and even a sense of place, as if cities themselves reveal their secrets to those who delve into literature and learning.
Themes
BooksLearningKnowledgeExplorationInsight
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of reading, this quote illustrates how much cities can teach us through books.
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
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
Thomas B. MacaulayRead
Pakistan has to export a lot of uneducated people, many of whom have become infected with the most barbaric reactionary ideas.
Christopher HitchensRead
The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn't matter
Jim RohnRead
Our present educational systems are all paramilitary. Their aim is to produce servants or soldiers who obey without question and who accepts their training as the best possible training. Those who are most successful in the state are those who have the most interest in prolonging the state as it is; they are also those who have the most say in the educational system, and in particular by ensuring that the educational product they want is the most highly rewarded.
John FowlesRead
But if for the physical life it is necessary to have the child exposed to the vivifying forces of nature, it is also necessary for his psychical life to place the soul of the child in contact with creation.
Maria MontessoriRead
If a kid is reading a book about someone who looks like them but doesn't talk like them, we stunt their growth by dissing them.
Jason ReynoldsRead