History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past
JOHN BERGERHistory always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past
JOHN BERGERThe past is the one thing we are not prisoners of. We can do with the past exactly what we wish. What we can’t do is to change its consequences.
JOHN BERGERThe time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared, you are both in that parenthesis. Its like a proscenium arch for a dialogue.
JOHN BERGERAdvertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal
JOHN BERGERModern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all.
JOHN BERGERHair is associated with sexual power. With passion.
JOHN BERGERWe never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
JOHN BERGERWe follow songs in order to be enclosed. We find ourselves inside a message.
JOHN BERGERAs Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances.
JOHN BERGERIt is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it
JOHN BERGERThe animal has secrets which, unlike the secrets of caves, mountains, seas are specifically addressed to man.
JOHN BERGERFanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.
JOHN BERGERPropaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.
JOHN BERGERFor me, drawing is a lot to do with taking out, with returning to the white of the paper.
JOHN BERGERBut toemigrate is always to dismantle the centre of the world, and so to move into a lost, disoriented one of fragments.
JOHN BERGERIt can happen that a book, unlike its authors, grows younger as the years pass.
JOHN BERGER