Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminRead
Not to find one's way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one's way in a city, as one loses one's way in a forest, requires some schooling. Street names must speak to the urban wanderer like the snapping of dry twigs, and little streets in the heart of the city must reflect the times of day, for him, as clearly as a mountain valley. This art I acquired rather late in life; it fulfilled a dream, of which the first traces were labyrinths on the blotting papers in my school notebooks.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Navigating a city requires learning and experience, akin to understanding nature's complexities.
Walter Benjamin reflects on the art of finding one's way through an urban environment, comparing it to skillfully navigating a forest. He suggests that the ability to understand and appreciate a city requires a depth of knowledge similar to that acquired through experiences in nature, emphasizing the importance of learning to decipher the urban landscape with the same intuition one has in the natural world.
Themes
NavigationUrban ExplorationLearningExperienceArtCity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about urban development, one might say, 'As Walter Benjamin insightfully noted, navigating a city requires a deeper understanding and appreciation of its intricacies.'
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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