black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects.

John Berger

Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.
JOHN BERGER

Blindness Chosen Come Dogma Fantacism Form Pursuit
Modern thought has transferred the spectral character of Death to the notion of time itself. Time has become Death triumphant over all.
JOHN BERGER

Character Death Modern Notion Spectular Time Transferred
A cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis.
JOHN BERGER

Arches Breathing Cigarettes Parentless Space
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
JOHN BERGER

Burden Camera Forget God Like Memories Photography Relieve Survey Us Yet
Yet nowherein a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Beyond Blindly Encounter Flicker Gaze Look Most Pass Stranger
It 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 BERGER

Establish Explain Fact Facts Place Seeing Surround Undo Word World
To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognised for oneself.
JOHN BERGER

Beauty Naked Oneself Recognise Seen
The opposite of love is not to hate but to separate. If love and hate have something in common it is because, in both cases, their energy is that of bringing and holding together
JOHN BERGER

Both Case Common Hate Love Opposite Separate Something
Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.
JOHN BERGER

Add All Cutting Daily Future Mean Media Modernism Past Presently
Common-sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant.
JOHN BERGER

Common Common Sense Deprive Fundamental Home Ideology Ignorant Learning Part Sense
To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.
JOHN BERGER

Anybody Closest Desire Feeling Immortal Life
[O]ften art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten.
JOHN BERGER

Art Future Innocent Judge never Often Past Revenge Shown Suffer
You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest – if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.
JOHN BERGER

Bureaucrat Greater Illusion Impersonal Interest Observe Others Power Themselves
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory.
JOHN BERGER

Burden Camera Memories Photography Recieve
All weddings are similar, but every marriage is different.
JOHN BERGER

Different Marriage Similar Wedding
Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense to that life, the empty space, the gap, is enormous.
JOHN BERGER

Experience Give Giving Moment Narrative Normal Offer Planet Public Sense Space

Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Berger Quotes