Walter Benjamin - Books Quotes

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Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.

Walter Benjamin

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.

Walter Benjamin

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

Walter Benjamin

Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.

Walter Benjamin

Collectors are people with a tactical instinct; their experience teaches them that when they capture a strange city, the smallest antique shop can be a fortress, the most remote stationery store a key position. How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!

Walter Benjamin

To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on his shelves.

Walter Benjamin

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 Benjamin

Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.

Walter Benjamin