On collecting: Walter Benjamin

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories. (...) For what else is a collection but a disorser to which habit has accomodated itself to such an extent that it can appear as order? (...) Thus there is in the life a a collector a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order. Naturally, his existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship (...); also, to a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value - that is, their usufulness - but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate. The most profound enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual items within a magic circle in which they are fixed as the final thrill, the thrill of acquisition, passes over them. Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his property.

Benjamin W. (1931) Unpacking My Library: A talk about book collecting, in Benjamin W. Illuminations (1999). London: Pimlico, p.62