O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than... a collector. Ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have two objects. No t that they come alive in him; it is he who comes alive in them.

— Walter Benjamin

Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception... as film is able to do today... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism.

— Walter Benjamin

Solitude appeared to me as the only fit state of man.

— Walter Benjamin

That things are "status quo" is the catastrophe.

— Walter Benjamin

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

— Walter Benjamin

The expressions of those moving about a picture gallery show ill-concealed disappointment that they only find pictures there.

— Walter Benjamin

The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.

— Walter Benjamin

The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.

— Walter Benjamin

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

— Walter Benjamin

The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.

— Walter Benjamin