Frasi di Walter Benjamin

Il narratore, p. 15

da Angelus Novus

dalle tesi Sul concetto di storia, Einaudi, 1997, p. 23

Viaggio attraverso l'inflazione tedesca; p. 17
Strada a senso unico

libro I “passages” di Parigi

da L'opera d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica
L'opera d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica

da Il mio viaggio in Italia. Pentecoste 1912, traduzione di L. A. Petroni, Rubbettino, Messina 1995

Origine: L'opera d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, p. 46

da Das Passagen – Werk
Origine: Citato in Franco Buono, Ferdinand Hardekopf: il fantasma dell'avanguardia, Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 1996, p. 46.

Origine: Citato in Andrea Cortellessa, Giovanni Raboni. L'osso senza carne della parola, Poesia, anno XII, n. 126, Crocetti Editore.

da Gesammelte Schriften; citato in Fabrizio Desideri, Il «fantastico» Scheerbart, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1982

È in realtà una citazione di László Moholy-Nagy. Nel 1931 Walter Benjamin riporta la citazione dell'artista ungherese in Piccola storia della fotografia, sulla rivista tedesca Die literarische Welt, e la commenta così: "Ma un fotografo che non sa leggere le proprie immagini non è forse meno di un analfabeta? La didascalia non diventerà per caso uno degli elementi essenziali dell'immagine?". Cfr. Walter Benjamin, L'opera d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, Einaudi 2000.
Attribuite

Giardino zoologico, p. 9
Infanzia berlinese

da Per un ritratto di Proust, in Opere complete, vol. III

libro Immagini di città

da Angelus Novus

Paul Scheerbart: Lesabéndio; citato in Fabrizio Desideri, Il «fantastico» Scheerbart, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1982

da Critiche e recensioni, Einaudi 1979, p. 314

Strada a senso unico

Strada a senso unico

Kaiserpanorama, p. 13
Infanzia berlinese

Origine: Citato in Giulio Schiavoni, Walter Benjamin: il figlio della felicità, Einaudi, Torino, 2001, p. 161.

Origine: Citato in Ferruccio Masini, Il suono di una sola mano. Lemmi critici e metacritici, Guida Editori, Napoli, 1982, p. 79.

da Parco centrale, XXIX, in Opere complete, vol. VII

da "Parco centrale", "Angelus Novus", Einaudi, 1995, p. 136

Origine: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), IX
Contesto: A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

Origine: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), III
Contesto: Nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history. To be sure, only a redeemed mankind receives the fullness of its past — which is to say, only a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments. Each moment it has lived becomes a citation à l'ordre du jour — and that day is Judgement Day.

Origine: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), IX

Origine: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Origine: One Way Street And Other Writings

Origine: Aesthetics and Politics

Origine: "The Storyteller" (1936), p. 91

Origine: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), II
Contesto: There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.

Origine: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), II
Contesto: There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.

Unpacking my Library: A Talk About Book Collecting (1931)
Contesto: Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. … 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.

Variant translation:
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize “how it really was.” It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. For historical materialism it is a question of holding fast to a picture of the past, just as if it had unexpectedly thrust itself, in a moment of danger, on the historical subject. The danger threatens the stock of tradition as much as its recipients. For both it is one and the same: handing itself over as the tool of the ruling classes. In every epoch, the attempt must be made to deliver tradition anew from the conformism which is on the point of overwhelming it. For the Messiah arrives not merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the Anti-christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
As translated by Dennis Redmond (2001)
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
Contesto: To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.

Origine: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Origine: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Origine: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Origine: The Origin of German Tragic Drama

Origine: (1940), II

Origine: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Variante: There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.
Origine: Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), VII
Origine: On the Concept of History

"The Destructive Character" Frankfurter Zeitung (20 November 1931)
Origine: Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings