"To believe in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.'
"What is it that binds you more intimately to these inpenetrable talking, eye-blinking bodies [If i recall correctly, he is speaking about his family] than the any other thing, the penholder in your hand, for example? Because you belong to the same species? But you don't belong to the same species, that's the very reason you asked the question."
It is the shape of these thoughts which so appeals, and one can see why it appealled to a dialectical thinker such as Walter Benjamin.