black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.

John Berger

To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.
JOHN BERGER

Anybody Closest Desire Feeling Immortal Life
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 existence of pleasure is the first mystery. The existence of pain has prompted far more philosophical speculation.
JOHN BERGER

More Mystery Pain Philosophical Presecute Space Speculation
It is not usually possible in a poem or a story to make the relationship between particular and universal fully explicit. Those who try to do so end up writing parables.
JOHN BERGER

Between Explicit Fully Make Relationship Stories Trying Universal Usually Writing
As Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances.
JOHN BERGER

Boycott Celebrity Circumstance Country Depend Government People Person Pont Principle Tactic Upon Way
The heart of Paris is like nothing so much as the unending interior of a house.
JOHN BERGER

Country Doors Heart House Interior Two Unending
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
The extreme proposition on which Giacometti based all his mature work was that no reality… could ever be shared. This is why he believed it impossible for a work to be finished. This is why the content of any work is not the nature of the figure or head portrayed but the incomplete history of him staring at it.
JOHN BERGER

Bases Extreme Finishing Giacometti History Impossible Incomplete Portrayed Proposition Reality Share Staring
We can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the accident of birth, there is no accident of death. Nothing forces us to remain what we were.
JOHN BERGER

Accident Anything Birth Impossible Injustice May Nothing Remain
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
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
Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events.
JOHN BERGER

Artist Country Event Influence might Outgoing Political Themselves Time Tragedies
Nothing fortuitous happens in a child’s world. There are no accidents. Everything is connected with everything else and everything can be explained by everything else. . . . For a young child everything that happens is a necessity.
JOHN BERGER

Child Children Fortuitouus Happen Nothing World Young
For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.
JOHN BERGER

Artist Discovery Drawing Literally Phrase Slick True
What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.
JOHN BERGER

Everything Four Happen Make Place Possible Story Take Wall

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Berger Quotes