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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

The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product.
JOHN BERGER

Buy Buyer Envy Herself Imagine Meant Product Spectator
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 essence of songs is neither vocal nor cerebral but organic.
JOHN BERGER

Celebrate Essence Order Organic Song Vocal
To remain innocent may also be. to remain ignorant.
JOHN BERGER

Ignorant Innocent May Remain
A tactic which allows people, as distinct from their elected but often craven governments, to apply a certain pressure on those wielding power in what they, the boycotters, consider to be an unjust or immoral way.
JOHN BERGER

Allow Boycott Consider Craven Distinct Elected Government People Pressure Tactic
This was once achieved by extensive deprivation. Today in the developed countries it is being achieved by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable.
JOHN BERGER

Achieve Country Deprivation Desirable Develop False Impose Intensive Standard Today
The woman’s sexual passion needs to be minimized, so that the spectator may feel that he has the monopoly on such passion
JOHN BERGER

Feel May Minimize Monopoly Need Passion Sexual Spectator Such Women
Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.
JOHN BERGER

Different Forget Look Meaning Pain Remember Thing
The animal has secrets which, unlike the secrets of caves, mountains, seas are specifically addressed to man.
JOHN BERGER

Address Animal Cave Man Men Mountain Sea Secret Specifically Unlike
The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set.
JOHN BERGER

Between Know Relation Settle
Buildings become furniture, courtyards become carpets and arrases, the streets are like galleries, the boulevards conservatories. It is a house, one or two centuries old, rich, bourgeois, distinguished. The only way of going out, or shutting the door behind you, is to leave the centre.
JOHN BERGER

Behind Bourgeois Building Conservatories Door Furniture Galleries Go House Shutting Street Way
Your lips, beloved, are like a honeycomb: honey and milk are under the tongue. And the smell of your clothes is like the smell of my home.
JOHN BERGER

Beloved Clothes Home Honeycomb Like Lip Milk Smell Tongue
Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.
JOHN BERGER

Alive Cicadas Legend Poem Poet Quiet Soul
Photography, because it stops the flow of life, is always flirting with death.
JOHN BERGER

Death Flirting Flow Life Photography
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
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

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.

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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

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