The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Meaning of the quote
The quote suggests that the traditional way of telling stories is disappearing. This is because the deeper meaning and wisdom behind stories is no longer being appreciated or passed down. In other words, the art of storytelling is declining as the profound insights and knowledge contained in stories are being lost.
About Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist who made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and maintained friendships with thinkers like Bertolt Brecht and Gershom Scholem. Though his work was not widely known during his lifetime, Benjamin’s writings have since gained posthumous renown.
More quotes from Walter Benjamin
Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
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.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
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.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
All disgust is originally disgust at touching.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.
German cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)