The Cathedral in Mayence is so shut in by the houses that are built ro — Alienation

"Money is the alienated essence of man’s work and existence, this essence dominates him and he worships it."

"The property-owning class and the class of the proletariat represent the same human self-alienation. But the former feels at home in this self-alienation and feels itself confirmed by it; it recognises alienation as its own instrument and in it it possesses the semblance of a human existence. The latter feels itself destroyed by this alienation and sees in it its own impotence and the reality of an inhuman existence."

"Perhaps the most destructive aspect of alienation is that: the loss of power, of control over one’s destiny, over one’s memories, thoughts, relationships, past, and future. For in a world where no normative understandings apply, where one is perceived as futile and unwanted, where one’s perceptions are denied by acquaintance and stranger alike, where pain is the single most familiar sensation, the loss of self is experienced continually and, finally, desperately."

"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts. They come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."

"Im the classic example of alienation: I grew up in a middle-class household without art or books. I was going to be a chemical engineer until I went to the theatre for the first time at 16 and was blown away by it."

"There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it; every old language is immediately compromised, and every language becomes old once it is repeated."