black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.

Roland Barthes

Literature is without proofs. By which it must be understood that it cannot prove, not only what it says, but even that it is worth the trouble of saying it.
ROLAND BARTHES

Evidence Literature Trouble Understand
The art of living has no history: it does not evolve: the pleasure which vanishes vanishes for good, there is no substitute for it. Other pleasures come, which replace nothing. No progress in pleasures, nothing but mutations.
ROLAND BARTHES

Art History Live Mutation Pleasure
Physically, the Ventoux is dreadful. Bald, it’s the spirit of Dry: Its climate (it is much more an essence of climate than a geographic place) makes it a damned terrain, a testing place for heroes, something like a higher hell.
ROLAND BARTHES

Essence Hell Heroes High Place
This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival.
ROLAND BARTHES

Absence Condition Endurance Faith Myself Survival
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in us.
ROLAND BARTHES

Forget Ourselves Settle
Whereas the work is understood to be traceable to a source (through a process of derivation or “filiation”), the Text is without a source – the “author” a mere “guest” at the reading of the Text.
ROLAND BARTHES

Reading Source Text Understand Work
Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
ROLAND BARTHES

Afford Appearance Body Erotic Glimpse
Television doomed us to the Family, whose household instrument it has become-what the hearth used to be, flanked by the communal kettle.
ROLAND BARTHES

Community Family Instrument Television
We know that the war against intelligence is always waged in the name of common sense.
ROLAND BARTHES

Common Deep Intelligence Known Name Philosophy Sense War
To make someone wait: the constant prerogative of all power.
ROLAND BARTHES

Patience Power Wait
Isn’t the most sensitive point of this mourning the fact that I must lose a language – the amorous language? No more ‘I love you’s.
ROLAND BARTHES

I Love You Language Lose Myself Point
Every photograph is a certificate of presence.
ROLAND BARTHES

Camera Certificate Photograph Presence
Pleasure is continually disappointed, reduced, deflated, in favor of strong, noble values: Truth, Death, Progress, Struggle, Joy, etc. Its victorious rival is Desire: we are always being told about Desire, never about Pleasure.
ROLAND BARTHES

Desire Disappointment Pleasure Rival Truth
Every new Fashion is a refusal to inherit, a subversion against the oppression of the preceding Fashion; Fashion experiences itself as a Right, the natural right of the present over the past.
ROLAND BARTHES

Experience Fashion Past Present Refusal
Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion.
ROLAND BARTHES

Confession Inflexion Lying
I cannot classify the other, for the other is, precisely, Unique, the singular Image which has miraculously come to correspond to the speciality of my desire. The other is the figure of my truth, and cannot be imprisoned in any stereotype (which is the truth of others).
ROLAND BARTHES

Classification Desire Myself Speciality Stereotype Truth Unique

A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Roland Barthes Quotes