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

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
Touch is the most demystifying of all senses, different from sight which is the most magical.
ROLAND BARTHES

Different Magic Sight Touch
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
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
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
A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.
ROLAND BARTHES

Emotion Light Reserve Shadow
The new is not a fashion, it is a value.
ROLAND BARTHES

Fashion Time Value
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in us.
ROLAND BARTHES

Forget Ourselves Settle
The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!
ROLAND BARTHES

Himself Imagination Policy Politics Trouble
The photographic image is a message without a code.
ROLAND BARTHES

Code Image Message Photography
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
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
Language is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech.
ROLAND BARTHES

Language Prevent Progression Speech
All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
ROLAND BARTHES

Death Determination Photography Young
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
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

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

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

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