To A Book Collector, You See, The

There Is No Muse Of Philosophy, Nor Is There One Of Translation.

This Is How One Pictures The Angel Of History. His Face Is Turned Toward The Past. Where We Perceived A Chain Of Events, He Sees One Single Catastrophe Which Keeps Piling Wreckage And Hurls It In Front Of His Feet. The Angel Would Like To Stay, Awaken The Dead, And Make Whole What Has Been Smashed. But A Storm Is Blowing From Paradise; It Has Got Caught In His Wings With Such Violence That The Angel Can No Longer Close Them. This Storm Irresistably Propels Him Into The Future To Which His Back Is Turned, While The Pile Of Debris Before Him Grows Skyward. The Storm Is What We Call Progress.

He Who Asks Fortune-tellers The Future Unwittingly Forfeits An Inner Intimation Of Coming Events That Is A Thousand Times More Exact Than Anything They May Say. He Is Impelled By Inertia, Rather Than Curiosity, And Nothing Is More Unlike The Submissive Apathy With Which He Hears His Fate Revealed Than The Alert Dexterity With Which The Man Of Courage Lays Hands On The Future.

Opinions Are A Private Matter. The Public Has An Interest Only In Judgments.

Having A Clear Faith, Based On The Creed Of The Church Is Often Labeled Today As Fundamentalism. Whereas Relativism, Which Is Letting Oneself Be Tossed And 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.