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Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Roland Barthes Quotes

“(I was looking at everything in the other's face, the other's body, coldly : lashes, toenail, thin eyebrows, thin lips, the luster of the eyes, a mole, a way of holding a cigarette; I was fascinated-fascination being, after all, only the extreme of detachment-by a kind of colored ceramicized, vitrified figurine in which I could read, without understanding anything about it, the cause of my desire. )”

LoveDesire
Book:A lover's discourse: fragments
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“Love at first sight is a hypnosis: I am fascinated by an image: at first shaken, electrified, stunned, "paralysed" as Menon was by Socrates, the model of loved objects, of captivating images, or again converted by an apparition, nothing distinguishing the path of enamoration from the Road to Damascus; subsequently ensnared, held fast, immobilised, nose stuck to the image (the mirror). In that moment when the other's image comes to ravish me for the first time, I am nothing more than the Jesuit Athanasius Kirchner's wonderful Hen: feet tied, the hen went to sleep with her eyes fixed on the chalk line, which was traced not far from her beak; when she was untied, she remained motionless, fascinated, "submitting to her vanquisher," as the Jesuit says (1646); yet, to waken her from her enchantment, to break off the violence of her Image-repertoire (vehemens animalis imaginatio), it was enough to tap her on the wing; she shook herself and began pecking in the dust again.”

Love At First SightRoad To DamascusAthanasius Kircher S HenVehemens Animalis Imaginato
Book:A lover's discourse: fragments
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“You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject... Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize)... this scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire. The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other... In this moment, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled... A moment of affirmation; for a certain time, though a finite one, a deranged interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).”

LoveSuccessDesireTimeChanceExperienceEmbraceLongingFortuneMemorySatisfactionLove At First SightAffirmationMomentUnionAmorousContextGestureConsummation
Book:A lover's discourse: fragments
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“People tell you to keep your "courage" up. But the time for courage is when she was sick, when I took care of her and saw her suffering, her sadness, and when I had to conceal my tears. Constantly one had to make a decision, put on a mask and that was courage. --Now, courage means the will to live and there's all too much of that.”

LossGriefCourageIllnessMourningCaregiversCaregiving
Book:Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979
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“Si consideramos el sentido de esta manera, es decir, teniendo en cuenta sus relaciones con la institución o las instituciones, advertimos que en realidad se trata de un problema muy candente; desde hace siglos, casi todos los combates ideológicos de la humanidad, en cualquier caso de la humanidad occidental, son combates del sentido; en teología, en sociología o precisamente en filología, las polémicas, incluso combates muy violentos, siempre tienen lugar en torno a una interpretación.”

InterpretationGuerraBarthesTeologiaPolemica
Book:Variaciones sobre la escritura
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