Roland Barthes quotes

" What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. " # Passion

" The photographic image... is a message without a code. " # Photography # Books - Reading # Ethics

" Other countries drink to get drunk, and this is accepted by everyone; in France, drunkenness is a consequence, never an intention. A drink is felt as the spinning out of a pleasure, not as the necessary cause of an effect which is sought: wine is not only a philter, it is also the leisurely act of drinking. " # Alcohol and Alcoholism # Freedom # Power

" 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. " # Language # Desire # Travel and Tourism

" There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it. " # Alienation # Freedom # Power

" 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! " # Interviews # Politicians and Politics # Love

" All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology. " # Language # Politicians and Politics # Stereotypes

" There are two kinds of liberalism. A liberalism which is always, subterraneously authoritative and paternalistic, on the side of one's good conscience. And then there is a liberalism which is more ethical than political; one would have to find another name for this. Something like a profound suspension of judgment. " # Liberals # Politicians and Politics # Ethics

" The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn an Event. " # Acting and Actors

" 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. " # Literature # Love # Life and Living