I encounter millions of bodies in my life; of these millions, I may desire some hundreds; but of these hundreds, I love only one. Roland Barthes More Quotes by Roland Barthes More Quotes From Roland Barthes I make the other’s absence responsible for my worldliness. Roland Barthes worldliness responsible absence Television doomed us to the Family, whose household instrument it has become-what the hearth used to be, flanked by the communal kettle. Roland Barthes used heart television There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque. Roland Barthes sports wrestling thinking Architecture is always dream and function, expression of a utopia and instrument of a convenience. Roland Barthes architecture expression dream A photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see. Roland Barthes invisible photograph photography It is said that mourning, by its gradual labour, slowly erases pain; I could not, I cannot believe this; because for me, Time eliminates the emotion of loss (I do note weep), that is all. For the rest, everything has remained motionless. For what I have lost is not a Figure (the Mother), but a being; and not a being, but a quality (a soul): not the indispensable, but the irreplaceable. Roland Barthes pain mother believe Where you are tender, you speak your plural. Roland Barthes where-you-are speak A picture is never anything but its own plural description. Roland Barthes description The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent. From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being, as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star. Roland Barthes stars real missing Eiffel saw his Tower in the form of a serious object, rational, useful; men return it to him in the form of a great baroque dream which quite naturally touches on the borders of the irrational ... architecture is always dream and function, expression of a utopia and instrument of a convenience. Roland Barthes expression dream men In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The 'anything whatever' then becomes the sophisticated acme of value. Roland Barthes notable photography order Ultimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks. Roland Barthes pensive photography thinking The haiku reproduces the designating gesture of the child pointing at whatever it is (the haiku shows no partiality for the subject), merely saying: that! Roland Barthes gestures shows children The Photograph is an extended, loaded evidence — as if it caricatured not the figure of what it represents (quite the converse) but its very existence ... The Photograph then becomes a bizarre (i)medium(i), a new form of hallucination: false on the level of perception, true on the level of time: a temporal hallucination, so to speak, a modest (o)shared(i) hallucination (on the one hand 'it is not there,' on the other 'but it has indeed been'): a mad image, chafed by reality. Roland Barthes mad hands reality I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient. Roland Barthes blame guilt power The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits. Roland Barthes lovers identity waiting Every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to an oral state, open to appropriation by society, for there is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things Roland Barthes law talking world Is the scene always visual? It can be aural, the frame can be linguistic: I can fall in love with a sentence spoken to me: and not only because it says something which manages to touch my desire, but because of its syntactical turn (framing), which will inhabit me like a memory. Roland Barthes falling-in-love desire memories If I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a "weakness" or an "absurdity": it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.) Roland Barthes weakness strong mean Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion. Roland Barthes myth confession lying
