This illusion forms what Fourier calls the tone of every historical epoch

"It is easy to understand that every great ... 'interest', when it first steps upon the world stage, extends the 'idea' or 'imagination' far beyond its real limits, and mistakes itself for an interest in humanity in general. This illusion forms what Fourier calls the tone of every historical epoch."

― Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project

Our coming was expected on earth.

“There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.”

― Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, published in Illuminations (1973)