black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

If everything that existed were continually being photographed, every photograph would become meaningless.
JOHN BERGER

Community Everything Exist Meaningless Photograph
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
Later alone it wore poems for clothes. Like a shirt I carried on my back the poetry I had read. So I lived for half a century until wordlessly we met. From my shirt on the back of the chair I learn tonight how many years of learning by heart I waited for you.
JOHN BERGER

Alone Carry Century Chair Clothes Heart Later Learn Like Live Poem Poet Read Want
By contrast, a woman’s presence… defines what can and cannot be done to her.
JOHN BERGER

Contrast Define Done Her Presence Women
To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.
JOHN BERGER

Ignorant Innocent May Remain
Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.
JOHN BERGER

Act Around Evil Human Inhuman Nature Need Nothing Repeated Talking Way
Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.
JOHN BERGER

Basic Best Compassion Necessity Oppose Order Therefore World
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
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
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
Oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects.
JOHN BERGER

Appearance Capital Equality Everything Object Oil Painting Reduce Relation Social
Hope is a contraband passed from hand to hand and story to story.
JOHN BERGER

Contraband Hand Stories
The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.
JOHN BERGER

Before Century Poverty Priorities Result Scarcity Set World
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
These contradictions both hide and increase the natural ambiguity of the photographic image.
JOHN BERGER

Ambiguity Contradiction Image Increase Natural Photo Photograph

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More John Berger Quotes