Every epoch, in fact, not only dreams the one to follow but, in dreaming, precipitates its awakening.

Walter Benjamin · Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century (1935)

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.

Walter Benjamin · The source reads: “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.… The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.” · The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936)

There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

Walter Benjamin · The source reads: “The products of art and science owe their existence not merely to the effort of the great geniuses that created them, but also to the unnamed drudgery of their contemporaries. There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” · Edward Fuchs: Collector and Historian (1937)

The work is the death mask of its conception.

Walter Benjamin · One-Way Street (1928)

The oldest habit in the world for resisting change is to complain that unless the remedy to the disease can be universally applied it should not be applied at all. But you must begin somewhere.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 25 May 1911

Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is.

Angela Merkel · Harvard commencement address (May 30, 2019)

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every epoch, in fact, not only dreams the one to follow but, in dreaming, precipitates its awakening.”

“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.”

“There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”

“The work is the death mask of its conception.”

“The oldest habit in the world for resisting change is to complain that unless the remedy to the disease can be universally applied it should not be applied at all. But you must begin somewhere.”

“Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is.”

“People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”

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