Television doomed us to the Family, whose household instrument it has become-what the hearth used to be, flanked by the communal kettle.
ROLAND BARTHESTelevision doomed us to the Family, whose household instrument it has become-what the hearth used to be, flanked by the communal kettle.
ROLAND BARTHESWe don’t forget, but something vacant settles in us.
ROLAND BARTHESAs Spectator I wanted to explore photography not as a question (a theme) but as a wound.
ROLAND BARTHESWine is a part of society because it provides a basis not only for a morality but also for an environment; it is an ornament in the slightest ceremonials of French daily life, from the snack to the feast, from the conversation at the local cafT to the speech at a formal dinner.
ROLAND BARTHESLiterature 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 BARTHESThe 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 BARTHESA paradox: the same century invented history and photography. But history is a memory fabricated according to positive formulas, a pure intellectual discourse which abolishes mythic time; and the photograph is a certain but fugitive testimony.
ROLAND BARTHESSomeone 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 BARTHESThere 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 BARTHESTo try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished.
ROLAND BARTHESWhen we look at a photograph of ourselves or of others, we are really looking at the return of the dead.
ROLAND BARTHESI have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it’s been pretty fun.
ROLAND BARTHESUltimately, Photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.
ROLAND BARTHESThe best principals are not heroes; they are hero makers.
ROLAND BARTHESIs not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
ROLAND BARTHESA photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see.
ROLAND BARTHES