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Quote by Roland Barthes

“Le toucher est le plus de mystificateur de tous les sens, a' la diffe rence de la vue, qui est le plus magique. Touch is the most demystifying of all senses, different from sight which is the most magical.”

Quote by Roland Barthes

Author

Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, and sociologist. He was a leading figure in structuralism and post-structuralism, known for his profound insights into semiotics, cultural criticism, and literary theory. His works, such as Mythologies, S/Z, and The Death of the Author, challenged traditional notions of authorship and meaning, emphasizing the multiplicity of texts and the active role of readers. Barthes' interdisciplinary approach influenced cultural studies, media analysis, and postmodern thought, making him one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century. more

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“Tout refus du langage est une mort. Any refusal of language is a death.”

Language Refusal

Author:Roland Barthes

“L'amoureux qui n'oublie pas quelquefois meurt par exce' s, fatigue et tension de me moire (tel Werther). The lover who does not forget sometimes dies from excess, fatigue, and the strain of memory (like Werther).”

Doe Sometimes Dies Memories Forget Lovers Tension Excess Strain Fatigue

Author:Roland Barthes

“Le langage est une peau: je frotte mon langage contre l'autre. Language is a skin; I rub my language against another language.”

Author:Roland Barthes

“Tout ce qui est anachronique est obsce' ne. Everything anachronistic is obscene.”

Author:Roland Barthes

“The petit-bourgeois is a man unable to imagine the Other. If he comes face to face with him, he blinds himself, ignores and denies him, or else transforms him into himself.”

Ifs Men Faces Imagine Deny Face To Face Bourgeois

Book:Barthes: Selected Writings

Source: Barthes: Selected Writings

“The Text is not a definitive object.”

Author:Roland Barthes

“The Text is plural. Which is not simply to say that it has several meanings, but that it accomplishes the very plural of meaning: an irreducible (and not merely an acceptable) plural. The Text is not a co-existence of meanings but a passage, an overcrossing; thus it answers not to an interpretation, even a liberal one, but to an explosion, a dissemination.”

Answers Existence Accomplish Interpretation Passages Acceptable Explosions Dissemination

Author:Roland Barthes

“Whereas the work is understood to be traceable to a source (through a process of derivation or "filiation"), the Text is without a source - the "author" a mere "guest" at the reading of the Text.”

Reading Process Source Understood Mere Guests

Author:Roland Barthes

“The discourse on the Text should itself be nothing other than text, research, textual activity, since the Text is that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder. The theory of the Text can coincide only with a practice of writing.”

Should Writing Language Social Space Practice Subjects Position Judging Masters Theory Activity Safe Research Discourse Analysts

Author:Roland Barthes

“I cannot pretend to do sculpture and make a woman the ridiculous pedestal of my pretensions. To render clothing poetic, yes--but one must preserve its dignity as clothing.”

Clothes Dignity Ridiculous Preserves Poetic Clothings Sculpture Pretension Pedestal

Book:Catalog of the Exhibition Held at the Costume

Source: Catalog of the Exhibition Held at the Costume