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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

The lover’s fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
ROLAND BARTHES

Fatal Identify Love Myself Oneself Wait
A light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.
ROLAND BARTHES

Emotion Light Reserve Shadow
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
There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.
ROLAND BARTHES

Escape Present Way
Isn’t desire always the same, whether the object is present or absent? Isn’t the object always absent? -This isn’t the same languor: there are two words: Pothos, desire for the absent being, and Himéros, the more burning desire for the present being.
ROLAND BARTHES

Absence Burning Desire Object Present
The lover who does not forget sometimes dies from excess, fatigue, and the strain of memory (like Werther).
ROLAND BARTHES

Forget Lover Memories Strain Time
Every photograph is a certificate of presence.
ROLAND BARTHES

Camera Certificate Photograph Presence
Why is it better to last than to burn?
ROLAND BARTHES

Better Burn Last Myself
There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.
ROLAND BARTHES

Attend People Performance Spectacle Sports Thinking
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
I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.
ROLAND BARTHES

Blame Guilty Myself Power
Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
ROLAND BARTHES

Afford Appearance Body Erotic Glimpse
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
It must always be considered as though spoken by a character in a novel
ROLAND BARTHES

Character Consider Myself Novel
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
Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.
ROLAND BARTHES

Hard Time Ourselves Suffering

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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