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 BERGERThe century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.
More John Berger Quotes
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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.
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It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.
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If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories.
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To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.
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The human imagination… has great difficulty in living strictly within the confines of a materialist practice or philosophy.
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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.
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Matisse did neither. He clashed his colours together like cymbals and the effect was like a lullaby.
JOHN BERGER -
One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.
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These contradictions both hide and increase the natural ambiguity of the photographic image.
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Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.
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Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events.
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A cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis.
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The century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.
JOHN BERGER -
Ethics determine choices and actions and suggest difficult priorities.
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By contrast, a woman’s presence… defines what can and cannot be done to her.
JOHN BERGER