John Berger Quotes - Page 2

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• That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.

  John Berger

  Beautiful, Nature, Believe

  John Berger (2008). “Selected Essays of John Berger”, p.569, Vintage

  66 Copy quote

• Photography, because it stops the flow of life, is always flirting with death.

  John Berger

  Photography, Flirting, Flow

  1983 In the New Statesman, 22/29 Dec.

  4 Copy quote

• The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.

  John Berger

  Past, Dying, Grows

  John Berger (2011). “And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos”, p.78, Vintage

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• Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.

  John Berger

  Dogma, Form, Pursuit

  "The bloody outcome of two worlds at war" by John Berger, www.theguardian.com. July 16, 2005.

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• When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls.

  John Berger

  Wall, Book, Reading

  John Berger (2011). “Keeping a Rendezvous”, p.15, Vintage

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• Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn't changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.

  John Berger

  Sex, Teenager, Believe

  John Berger (2011). “Keeping a Rendezvous”, p.101, Vintage

  62 Copy quote

• The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time.

  John Berger

  Play, Invisible, Photograph

  John Berger (2008). “Selected Essays of John Berger”, p.346, Vintage

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• What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.

  John Berger

  Animal, Men, Firsts

  John Berger (2015). “About Looking”, p.8, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• The contradiction in perspective was that it structured all images of reality to address a single spectator who, unlike God, could only be in one place at a time.

  John Berger

  Reality, Perspective, Addresses

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• Words are so often used in the opposite sense, as a screen of diversion. It's the struggle towards truthfulness which is the same whether one is writing a poem, a novel or an argument.

  John Berger

  Struggle, Writing, Opposites

  "Q & A / John Berger / The moment of truth is now". Interview with Kenneth Baker, www.sfgate.com. January 6, 2002.

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• For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.

  John Berger

  Artist, Discovery, Drawing

  John Berger (2008). “Selected Essays of John Berger”, p.30, Vintage

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• The opposite of love is not to hate but to separate. If love and hate have something in common it is because, in both cases, their energy is that of bringing and holding together

  John Berger

  Love, Hate, Opposites

  John Berger (2014). “And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos”, p.73, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Protest and anger practically always derives from hope, and the shouting out against injustice is always in the hope of those injustices being somewhat corrected and a little more justice established.

  John Berger

  Justice, Littles, Shouting

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• Everything in life, is a question of drawing a life, John, and you have to decide for yourself where to draw it. You cant draw it for others. You can try, of course, but it doesn't work. People obeying rules laid down my somebody else is not the same thing as respecting life. And if you want to respect life, you have to draw a line.

  John Berger

  Drawing, People, Trying

  John Berger (2007). “Here Is Where We Meet: A Story of Crossing Paths”, p.9, Vintage

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• You can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events.

  John Berger

  Events, Plans, According To Plan

  John Berger (1972). “Selected Essays and Articles: The Look of Things”

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• Without ethics man has no future. This is to say mankind without them cannot be itself. Ethics determine choices and actions and suggest difficult priorities.

  John Berger

  Men, Choices, Priorities

  "The denial of true reflection" by John Berger, www.theguardian.com. August 20, 2006.

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• Never chain your dogs together with sausages. One must accustom one's self to be bored.

  John Berger

  Dog, Blessing, Self

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• When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.

  John Berger

  Grief, Loss, Childhood

  John Berger (2011). “A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor”, p.122, Vintage

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• Traditional Chinese art looked at the Earth from a Confucian mountain top; Japanese art looked closely around screens; Italian Renaissance art surveyed conquered nature through the window or door-frame of a palace. For the Cro-Magnons, space is a metaphysical arena of continually intermittent appearances and disappearances.

  John Berger

  Art, Italian, Space

  "Past present" by John Berger, www.theguardian.com. October 12, 2002.

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• A drawing is an autobiographical record of one's discovery of an event - either seen, remembered or imagined. A 'finished' work is an attempt to construct an event in itself.

  John Berger

  Discovery, Drawing, Events

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• Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.

  John Berger

  Believe, Men, Cities

  John Berger (2011). “Keeping a Rendezvous”, p.101, Vintage

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• It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it

  John Berger

  World, Facts, Seeing

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• Whenever the intensity of looking reaches a certain degree, one becomes aware of an equally intense energy coming towards one through the appearance of whatever it is one is scrutinizing.

  John Berger

  Energy, Degrees, Appearance

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• The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.

  John Berger

  God, Photography, Memories

  John Berger (2015). “About Looking”, p.44, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. By contrast, a woman's presence... defines what can and cannot be done to her.

  John Berger

  Men, Done, Contrast

  "Ways of Seeing". Book by John Berger, 1972.

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