Quote by Walter Benjamin
Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function c

Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information — hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. – Walter Benjamin

Other quotes by Walter Benjamin

All religions have honored the beggar. For he proves that in a matter at the same time as prosaic and holy, banal and regenerative as the giving of alms, intellect and morality, consistency and principles are miserably inadequate. – Walter Benjamin

Category:
Charity
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Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. – Walter Benjamin

Category:
Experience
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The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions. – Walter Benjamin

Category:
Facts
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Other Quotes from
Translation
category

The test of a given phrase would be: Is it worthy to be immortal? To make a beeline for something. Thats worthy of being immortal and is immortal in English idiom. I guess Ill split is not going to be immortal and is excludable, therefore excluded. – Robert Fitzgerald

Category:
Translation

As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings. – Boris Pasternak

Category:
Translation

The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry. – Leonardo Sciascia

Category:
Translation

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life. – Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

Category:
Translation

Random Quotes

He who has made a thousand things and he who has made none, both feel the same desire: to make something. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Category:
Action

Few are sufficiently sensible of the importance of that economy in reading which selects, almost exclusively, the very first order of books. Why, except for some special reason, read an inferior book, at the very time you might be reading one of the highest order? – John W. Foster

Category:
Economics

Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Ephesians 6:10 – Bible

Category:
Bravery

Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude. – Maurice Baring

Category:
Manners