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John Berger

John Berger Quotes

Art critic

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Famous John Berger Quotes

“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.”

MenFirstsHumansLanguageBornAnimalDevelopmentCapacityMereSymbolsHumankindSignalsDistinguishedSymbolicInseparableHuman Capacity
Book:About Looking
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“Photographs bear witness to a human choice being exercised in a given situation. A photograph is a result of the photographer's decision that it is worth recording that this particular event or this particular object has been seen. If everything that existed were continually being photographed, every photograph would become meaningless.”

IfsHumansHas BeensChoicesGivenDecisionResultsSituationEventsObjectsParticularBearsPhotographyPhotographerPhotographWitnessMeaningless
Book:Selected Essays of John Berger
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“One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating. This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.”

LifeHumansReasonLife IsValuesAcceptingKnowingDoctorsFundamentalsPatientMedicalHuman LifeReason WhyAbstractCynicalWornUncertainIncapableIdealismInhumanDisillusionedCallousActual Life
Author:John Berger
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