Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction. – Walter Benjamin
The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing. – Walter Benjamin
Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance. – 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 quotation-business is booming. No subdivision of the culture seems too narrow to have a quotation book of its own…. It would be an understatement to say that these books lean on one another. To compare them is to stroll through a glorious jungle of incestuous mutual plagiarism. – James Gleick, 1993
But while so many white Americans are unaware of conditions inside the ghetto, there are very few ghetto dwellers who are unaware of the life outside. The television sets bombard them day by day with the opulence of the larger society. – Martin Luther King,Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967