There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.
- Roland Barthes
Ahead, Way, Retreat, Alienation
To 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 Barthes
Love, Language, Confront, Hysteria
The photographic image... is a message without a code.
- Roland Barthes
Message, Image, Code, Photographic
Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.
- Roland Barthes
Desire, Other, Against, Trembles
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
Prove, Without, Which, Understood
I have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it's been pretty fun.
- Roland Barthes
Pretty, Been, Eclectic, Possibly
The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition... always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.
- Roland Barthes
News, New, Always, Humiliated
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
Code, Which, Oppressive, Legislation
Through the mythology of Einstein, the world blissfully regained the image of knowledge reduced to a formula.
- Roland Barthes
World, Through, Image, Einstein
What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.
- Roland Barthes
Condition, May, Which, Claim
The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man.
- Roland Barthes
Street, Offers, Itself, Block
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
Deal, Sentence, Stopped, Great Deal
I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.
- Roland Barthes
Blame, Guilt, Call, Discourse
Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion.
- Roland Barthes
Confession, Myth, Nor, Neither
The New is not a fashion, it is a value.
- Roland Barthes
Value, New, Fashion
A photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see.
- Roland Barthes
Invisible, See, Always, Photograph
To eat steak rare... represents both a nature and a morality.
- Roland Barthes
Nature, Steak, Represents, Both
For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture.
- Roland Barthes
Needs, Them, Artiste, Arms
Literature is the question minus the answer.
- Roland Barthes
Question, Literature, Answer, Minus
What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
- Roland Barthes
Image, Public, Itself, Wants
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