The Archive is the collection of all material traces left behind by a particular historical period and culture which one can use to deduce a historical a priori.
Archive is a kind of thought in which the eye goes beyond things to visibilities and language goes beyond words to utterances.
A Collection is dead when it is a collection to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be removed!.
A Collection is always more than is necessary. It is a material concentrate that continually stimulates, that overexcites because it is already too much. The collector's need is precisely for excess, for surfeit, for profusion. It's too much and it's just enough for the collector.
An Institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; all history resolves itself easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.
The Institution is necessary to the nation — Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
The Institution is what springs up where there is a lull of truth, just as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind.
An Institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley, Abolition, of Clarkson.
13 concepts in this pillow book.