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I love you is unsubtle. It removes explanations, facilities, degrees, scruples.

Roland Barthes

Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion.
ROLAND BARTHES

Confession Inflexion Lying
A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.
ROLAND BARTHES

Emotion Light Reserve Shadow
Someone tells me: this kind of love is not viable. But how can you evaluate viability? Why is the viable a Good Thing? Why is it better to last than to burn?
ROLAND BARTHES

Better Burn Evaluation Kind Love
To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought?
ROLAND BARTHES

Answer Hope Love Myself Question Yourself
The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.
ROLAND BARTHES

Born Cost Death Reading
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
In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The ‘anything whatever’ then becomes the sophisticated acme of value.
ROLAND BARTHES

Notable Order Photography Sophistication Value
All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.
ROLAND BARTHES

Ideas Institution Meaning Official Popular Repeat Structure
Thus every writer’s motto reads: mad I cannot be, sane I do not deign to be, neurotic I am.
ROLAND BARTHES

Design Myself Reading Writing
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
The Ventoux is a god of Evil, to which sacrifices must be made. It never forgives weakness and extracts an unfair tribute of suffering.
ROLAND BARTHES

Evil Forgiveness God Ourselves Suffering Weakness
Ultimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.
ROLAND BARTHES

Fear Photography Scare Thinking
It is no longer the sexual which is indecent, it is the sentimental.
ROLAND BARTHES

Emotional Sexuality
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
If I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a “weakness” or an “absurdity”: it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.)
ROLAND BARTHES

Acknowledge Demand Depend Myself Sign Strength Strong
How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?
ROLAND BARTHES

Beyond Image Meaning

I love you is unsubtle. It removes explanations, facilities, degrees, scruples.

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I love you is unsubtle. It removes explanations, facilities, degrees, scruples.

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