V
"The chronicler, who recounts events without distinguishing between the great and small, thereby accounts for the truth, that nothing which has ever happened is to be given as lost to history...
..The true picture of the past whizzes by. Only as a picture, which flashes its final farewell in the moment of its recognisability, is the past to be held fast."
Walter Benjamin
Theses on the Philosophy of History
Theses on the Philosophy of History
"Since I wrote the foregoing, I have thought about my project again and again and tried to find a way out of my difficulty. I have not found a solution. I am still confronted by chaos. But I have vowed not to give in, and at that moment of making this vow a happy memory passed through my mind like a ray of sunshine. It was similar, it seemed to me, quite similar to how I felt when we began our expedition; then we also undertook something apparently impossible, then we also apparently travelled in the dark, not knowing our direction and without prospects. Yet we had within us something stronger than reality or probability, and that was faith in the meaning and necessity of our action. I shuddered at the recollection of this sentiment, and at the moment of this blissful shudder, everything became clear, everything seemed possible again."
Hermann Hesse
The Journey to the East
