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All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this – as in other ways – they are the opposite of paintings.

John Berger

The stars threaded on that line were like events threaded on a narrative. Imagining the constellations did not of course change the stars, nor did it change the black emptiness that surrounds them. What it changed was the way people read the night sky.
JOHN BERGER

Change Constellation Event Imagining Night People Sky Surround Threaded
We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice.
JOHN BERGER

Act Choice Look Only See
[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
When he painted a road, the roadmakers were there in his imagination, when he painted the turned earth of a ploughed field, the gesture of the blade turning the earth was included in his own act.
JOHN BERGER

Earth Field Gesture Imagination Paint Ploughed Reality Road Roadmaker Turn Warth
All publicity works upon anxiety.
JOHN BERGER

Anxiety Publicity Upon Work
A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Away Become Fond Glad Peasant Pig Pigs Pork Two
In the modern world, in which thousands of people are dying every hour as a consequence of politics, no writing anywhere can begin to be credible unless it is informed by political awareness and principles.
JOHN BERGER

Anywhere Consequences Every Hour Modern People Political Politics Thousand Writing
The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you.
JOHN BERGER

Being Depend Envy Experience Glamourous Happiness Illusion Precisely Reassurance Share Solitary
What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.
JOHN BERGER

Connect Difficult Significant Statement Strange Understand
Words are so often used in the opposite sense, as a screen of diversion. It’s the struggle towards truthfulness which is the same whether one is writing a poem, a novel or an argument.
JOHN BERGER

Argument Diversion Opposite Same Screen Struggle Towards Truthfulness Use Word Writing
Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.
JOHN BERGER

Audience Cinema Deep Individually Nature Ritual Theatre Transport Unknown
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
Hope is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story.
JOHN BERGER

Contraband Hand Stories
It dreams, like a dog in its basket, of hares in the open.
JOHN BERGER

Basket Dog Dream Haire Like Open
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
Hair is associated with sexual power. With passion.
JOHN BERGER

Associate Hair Need Passion Sexual

All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this – as in other ways – they are the opposite of paintings.

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All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this – as in other ways – they are the opposite of paintings.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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