Roland Barthes Quotes

French - Critic November 12, 1915 - March 26, 1980

The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man. Roland Barthes

Man, Street, Skyscraper, Block, Offers

Literature is the question minus the answer. Roland Barthes

Literature, Question, Answer, Minus

To eat steak rare... represents both a nature and a morality. Roland Barthes

Nature, Morality, Steak, Eat, Rare, Both

To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished. Roland Barthes

Love, Love Is, Language, Too Much, Try

What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth. Roland Barthes

Live, Truth, Time, Sarcasm, May, Well

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. Roland Barthes

Words, Language, Skin, Desire, Against

There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it. Roland Barthes

Day, Society, Present, Escape, Way, Left

Through the mythology of Einstein, the world blissfully regained the image of knowledge reduced to a formula. Roland Barthes

Knowledge, World, Image, Through

A photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see. Roland Barthes

Invisible, Always, See, Photograph

Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive. Roland Barthes

Power, Language, Speech, Forget, See

The photographic image... is a message without a code. Roland Barthes

Image, Without, Message, Code

I have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it's been pretty fun. Roland Barthes

Life, Fun, Professional, Pretty, Been

The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition... always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning. Roland Barthes

Culture, Meaning, Repetition, News, New

For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture. Roland Barthes

Theatre, Better, Short, Long, Never

The New is not a fashion, it is a value. Roland Barthes

Value, Fashion, New

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient. Roland Barthes

Power, Blame, Guilt, Discourse, Call

Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion. Roland Barthes

Lie, Confession, Myth, Nor, Neither

What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. Roland Barthes

Passion, Image, Wants, Public, Itself

Literature is without proofs. By which it must be understood that it cannot prove, not only what it says, but even that it is worth the trouble of saying it. Roland Barthes

Saying, Literature, Worth, Trouble, Must

The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized! Roland Barthes

Great, Ending, Short, Trouble, Clearly

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William Hazlitt

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Margaret Fuller

George Edward Woodberry

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