“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. … For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form — it may be called fleeting or eternal — is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.”

— Walter Benjamin

A Berlin Chronicle (1932–, unfinished), in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings – vol. 2, pt. 2: 1931-1934, ed. Michael William Jennings, Harvard University Press, 2005, p. 612

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. … For even if months and years appear her…" by Walter Benjamin?

Walter Benjamin photo

Walter Benjamin70

German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892… 1892–1940

Related quotes

“Memories are made of peculiar stuff, elusive and yet compelling, powerful and fleet. You cannot trust your reminiscences, and yet there is no reality except the one we remember……”

Klaus Mann (1906–1949) German writer

Source: The Turning Point

“Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.”

Luigi Pirandello Six Characters in Search of an Author

Source: Six Characters in Search of an Author

“The Heart is that understanding, that true consciousness, that true life that is under the extreme conditions of life and death. Therefore, it is said, that One that is, is neither born nor come to death, not alive as the limitation of form, not rendered in what appears, and yet it is the living One, than which there is no other, appearing as all of this, but eternally the same.”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

The Knee of Listening

“Already, a conscious courage is coming to life. Here are some of the painters: Picasso, Georges Braque, Delaunay, Le Fauconnier.... they are highly enlightened, and do not believe in the stability of any system, even if it were to call itself classical art.... Their reason is poised between the pursuit of the fleeting and a mania for the eternal.”

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter

Note sur la Peinture (1910)

“For lack of empirical data I have neither knowledge nor understanding of such forms of being, which are commonly called spiritual. …Nevertheless, we have good reason to suppose that behind this veil there exists the uncomprehended absolute object which affects and influences us—and to suppose it even, or particularly, in the case of psychic phenomena about which no verifiable statements can be made.”

C.G. Jung book Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), pp.351 f.

“Neither is there figurative and non-figurative art. All things appear to us in the shape of forms. Even in metaphysics ideas are expressed by forms, well then think how absurd it would be to think of painting without the imagery of forms. A figure, an object, a circle, are forms; they affects us more or less intensely.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
Richard Friedenthal, (1963, pp. 257-258).
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

“The Buddha said, "Elements come together and form this body. At the time of appearing, elements appear. At the time of disappearing, elements disappear. When elements appear, I do not say "I" appear. When elements disappear, I do not say "I" disappear. Past moments and future moments do not arise in sequence. Past elements and future elements are not in alignment. This is the meaning of ocean mudra samadhi."
Closely investigate these words by the Buddha. Attaining the way and entering realization does not necessarily require extensive learning or realization. Anyone can attain the way through a simple verse of four lines. Even scholars of extensive learning can enter realization through a one line verse.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

Ocean Mudra Samadhi (1242)

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”

H.P. Lovecraft book The Nameless City

Variant: That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Source: The Nameless City

“It is somewhat strange to me, that neither the Spagyrists themselves, nor yet their Adversaries, should have taken notice that Chymists have rather supposed than evinced, that the Analysis of bodies by fire, or even that at least some Analysis is the onely instrument of investigating what Ingredients mixt bodies are made up of, since in divers cases That may be discovered by Composition as well as by Resolution; as it may appear, that Vitriol consists of metalline parts (whether Martial, or Venereal, or both) associated by Coagulation with acid ones, one may, I say, discover this as well by making true Vitriol with Spirit (improperly called Oil) of Sulphur, or that of Salt, as by distilling or Resolving Vitriol by the fire.”

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) English natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor

Of the Imperfection of The Chymist's Doctrine of Qualities (1675)

“So when the universe was quickened with soul, God was well pleased; and he bethought him to make it yet more like its type. And whereas the type is eternal and nought that is created can be eternal, he devised for it a moving image of abiding eternity, which we call time. And he made days and months and years, which are portions of time; and past and future are forms of time, though we wrongly attribute them also to eternity. For of eternal Being we ought not to say 'it was', 'it shall be', but 'it is' alone: and in like manner we are wrong in saying 'it is' of sensible things which become and perish; for these are ever fleeting and changing, having their existence in time.”

Plato book Timaeus

37c–38b, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ (1888) <br class="br">Timaeus

Related topics