That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe. John Berger More Quotes by John Berger More Quotes From John Berger The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. John Berger illusion envy power So time doesn't count, and place does?' I said this to tease her. When I was a man, I liked teasing her and she went along with it, consenting, for it reminded us both of a sadness that had passed. John Berger sadness doe men The media network has its idols, but its principal idol is its own style which generates an aura of winning and leaves the rest in darkness. It recognizes neither pity nor pitilessness. John Berger media idols winning One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating. This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth. John Berger doctors knowing life What any true painting touches is an absence - an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss. John Berger would-be loss might Nothing fortuitous happens in a child's world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity. John Berger young children world Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list. John Berger shopping wall shadow The zoo cannot but disappoint. John Berger pet animal zoos Every authentic poem contributes to the labour of poetry... to bring together what life has separated or violence has torn apart. John Berger torn-apart poetry together We live in a dominant culture of ceaseless Departure and Progress that has so far lasted two or three centuries. John Berger progress three two The extreme proposition on which Giacometti based all his mature work was that no reality... could ever be shared. This is why he believed it impossible for a work to be finished. This is why the content of any work is not the nature of the figure or head portrayed but the incomplete history of him staring at it. John Berger finishing impossible reality When a painter is working he is aware of the means which are available to him - these include his materials, the style he inherits, the conventions he must obey, his prescribed or freely chosen subject matter - as constituting both an opportunity and a restraint. John Berger challenges opportunity mean Hair is associated with sexual power. With passion. The woman's sexual passion needs to be minimized, so that the spectator may feel that he has the monopoly on such passion John Berger passion hair needs Malevich, Lissitsky, Kandinsky, Tatlin, Pevsner, Rodchenko... all believed in the social role of art... Their works were like hinged doors, connecting activity with activity. Art with engineering; music with painting; poetry with design; fine art with propaganda; photographs with typography; diagrams with action; the studio with the street. John Berger engineering doors art The autobiographical doesn't interest me. I could think of few things less interesting than rooting about in my life. John Berger interest interesting thinking All nationalisms are at heart deeply concerned with names: with the most immaterial and original human invention. Those who dismiss names as a detail have never been displaced; but the peoples on the peripheries are always being displaced. That is why they insist upon their continuity - their links with their dead and the unborn. John Berger links names heart The collaboration which sometimes follows is seldom based on good will: usually on desire, rage, fear, pity or longing. The modern illusion concerning painting (which post-modernism has done nothing to correct) is that the artist is the creator. Rather he is a reciever. What seems like creaton is the act of giving form to what he has recieved. John Berger artist desire giving If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories. John Berger events would-be names Publicity is the life of this culture. Without publicity capitalism could not survive and at the same time publicity is its dream. John Berger Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall. John Berger intelligence surprise impossible fall
