"The Dadaists attached much less importance to the sales value of their work than to its uselessness for contemplative immersion (...) What they intended and achieved was a relentless destruction of the aura of their creations, which they branded as reproductions with the very means of production. (...) In the decline of middle-class society, contemplation became a school for asocial behaviour"

- Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)

Source: Benjamin, Walter. Printed in: Harrison & Wood. Art in Theory. 1900-2000. An Anthology Of Changing Ideas. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Originally published in the Frankfurt Institute journal (operating in exile in the United States), Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, V, no. 1, New York, 1936. English translation by Harry Zohn in H. Arendt (ed), Walter benjamin, illuminations, London, 1973, pp. 219-53.