black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Whenever the intensity of looking reaches a certain degree, one becomes aware of an equally intense energy coming towards one through the appearance of whatever it is one is scrutinizing.
JOHN BERGER

Appearance Aware Become Certain Come Degree Degrees Energy Intense Intensity Look Scrutinizing Towards
I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often 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 Can Forgotten Innocent Judge Know Past Revenge Show
Nakedness reveals itself. Nudity is placed on display. The nude is condemned to never being naked. Nudity is a form of dress.
JOHN BERGER

Beauty Condemned Display Dresses Naked Nue Place
If the public photograph contributes to a memory, it is to the memory of an unknowable and total stranger.
JOHN BERGER

Contribute Memories Photograph Stranger Unknowable
There’s the artist’s intimacy and truthfulness to himself, but an equal intimacy to the Other [the one drawn].
JOHN BERGER

Artist Drawing Drawn Equal Intimacy Other Truthfulness
To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.
JOHN BERGER

Anybody Closest Desire Feeling Immortal Life
To be naked is to be oneself.
JOHN BERGER

Be Naked Oneself
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
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
We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.
JOHN BERGER

Earth Explanation Knowledge Quite Sight Yet
History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past
JOHN BERGER

Always Constitute History Past Present Relation
When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls.
JOHN BERGER

Book Inhabit Like Reading Real Roof Story Wall
I wanted to write about looking at the world, so it’s more about helping people, or persuading people, to see what is around us; both the marvellous and the terrible.
JOHN BERGER

Around Help Look Marvelous People See Terrible Want World Writing
To live and die amongst foreigners may seem less absurd than to live persecuted or tortured by one’s fellow countrymen….
JOHN BERGER

Amouingest Countrymen Die Fellow Foreigner Less Live May Moving Persecuted Seem Torture World
The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time.
JOHN BERGER

Invisible Photograph Play Time True
Whenever he looked he saw the labour of existence; and this labour, recognised as such, was what constituted reality for him. (On Vincent Van Gogh)
JOHN BERGER

Constitute Country Existence Labour Look People Recognised Saw Sky Vicent

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Berger Quotes