A near-synonym is boulevardier

 

“It is only for those without hope that hope is given.”




 

“No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.”

“A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon 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 irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”

 

“There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”

“In the end, we get older, we kill everyone who loves us through the worries we give them, through the troubled tenderness we inspire in them, and the fears we ceaselessly cause.”

  Walter Benjamin

One Sabbath evening

In a Hasidic village, so the story goes, Jews were sitting together in a shabby inn one Sabbath evening. They were all local people, with the exception of one person no one knew, a very poor ragged man who was squatting in a dark corner at the back of the room. All sorts of things were discussed, and then it was suggested that everyone should tell what wish he would make if one were granted him. One man wanted money; another wished for a son-in-law; a third dreamed of a new carpenter's bench; and so everyone spoke in turn. After they had finished, only the beggar in his dark corner was left.

Reluctantly and hesitatingly he answered the question. "I wish I were a powerful king reigning over a big country. Then, some night while I was asleep in my palace, an enemy would invade my country, and by dawn his horsemen would penetrate to my castle and meet with no resistance. Roused from my sleep , I wouldn't have time even to dress and I would have to flee in my shirt. Rushing over hill and dale and through forests by day and night, I would finally arrive safely right here at the bench in this corner. This is my wish."

The others exchanged uncomprehending glances. "And what good would this wish have done you?" someone asked. "I'd have a shirt" was the answer."

Walter Benjamin