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Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.

John Berger

One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating.
JOHN BERGER

Abstract Actual Cynical Disillusioned Doctor Fundamental Idealism Knowing Life Precise Reason Treat
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 Envied Envy Greater Illusion Power Themselves
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
Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
JOHN BERGER

Age Believe City Every Nothing Sex Teenager
No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
JOHN BERGER

Belong Draw Naturalist Paint Photograph Subject Way
Tracing an imaginary line between a cluster of stars gave them an image and an identity.
JOHN BERGER

Between Cluster Gave Identity Image Imaginary Star Trace
The 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 BERGER

Consequences Exactly Past Prisoner Wish
If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories.
JOHN BERGER

Event Given Name Need Occurred Story
The unsung, impersonal world remains outside, on the other surface of a placenta. All songs, even when their content or rendering is strongly masculine, operate maternally.
JOHN BERGER

All Content Impersonal Maternity Operate Outside Placenta Remain Song Surface
But toemigrate is always to dismantle the centre of the world, and so to move into a lost, disoriented one of fragments.
JOHN BERGER

Always Centre Dismantle Emigrate Fragment Lost Move World
Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.
JOHN BERGER

Animal Born Distinguish Men Relationship Symbol Yet
The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.
JOHN BERGER

Around Die Dying Gradually Grow One Past Placenta
We who draw do so not only to make something observed visible to others, but also to accompany something invisible to its incalculable destination
JOHN BERGER

Calculate Destination Draws Invisible Make Observed Something Visible
To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude.
JOHN BERGER

Naked Oneness Oneself Order Other Recognize Sight
One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.
JOHN BERGER

Dwelling Home Hostile Language Men Place Potentially
Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.
JOHN BERGER

Children Looks Speak Recognize Word

Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.

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Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.

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Popular Authors

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