black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

When we look at a photograph of ourselves or of others, we are really looking at the return of the dead.

Roland Barthes

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
In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die: I shudder, like winnicott’s psychotic patient, over a catastrophe which has already occurred. Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.
ROLAND BARTHES

Children Death Fear Mom Myself Patient Photography
I love you is unsubtle. It removes explanations, facilities, degrees, scruples.
ROLAND BARTHES

I Love You Myself Removal
What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.
ROLAND BARTHES

Existence Oneself Repeat Reproduction
One must turn the tongue seven times in the mouth before speaking.
ROLAND BARTHES

Mouth Oneself Speaking Time Tongue
What love lays bare in me is energy.
ROLAND BARTHES

Bare Energy Love One Liner
A photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see.
ROLAND BARTHES

Invisible Photograph See
I have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it’s been pretty fun.
ROLAND BARTHES

Fun Life Myself Possible Pretty Professional
A picture is never anything but its own plural description.
ROLAND BARTHES

Description Photograph Plural
Painting can feign reality without having seen it.
ROLAND BARTHES

Myself Painting Reality See
The author enters into his own death, writing begins.
ROLAND BARTHES

Author Beginning Death Deep Writing
I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time.
ROLAND BARTHES

Arrival Lose Myself Time
Literature is the question minus the answer.
ROLAND BARTHES

Answer Literature Question
Every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to an oral state, open to appropriation by society, for there is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things
ROLAND BARTHES

Existence Law Natural Object Silence Society State
I passed beyond the unreality of the thing represented, I entered crazily into the spectacle, into the image, taking into my arms what is dead, what is going to die.
ROLAND BARTHES

Beyond Death Myself Pass Reality Spectacle
Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
ROLAND BARTHES

Classification Forget Language Oppression Power Speech

When we look at a photograph of ourselves or of others, we are really looking at the return of the dead.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

When we look at a photograph of ourselves or of others, we are really looking at the return of the dead.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Roland Barthes Quotes