Home > Author > John Berger
1 " Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form. "
― John Berger
2 " A man's death makes everything certain about him. Of course, secrets may die with him. And of course, a hundred years later somebody looking through some papers may discover a fact which throws a totally different light on his life and of which all the people who attended his funeral were ignorant. Death changes the facts qualitatively but not quantitatively. One does not know more facts about a man because he is dead. But what one already knows hardens and becomes definite. We cannot hope for ambiguities to be clarified, we cannot hope for further change, we cannot hope for more. We are now the protagonists and we have to make up our minds. "
3 " My heart born nakedwas swaddled in lullabies.Later alone it worepoems for clothes.Like a shirtI carried on my backthe poetry I had read.So I lived for half a centuryuntil wordlessly we met.From my shirt on the back of the chairI learn tonighthow many yearsof learning by heartI waited for you. "
― John Berger , And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos
4 " The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight. "
― John Berger , Ways of Seeing
5 " When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own. "
― John Berger , Keeping a Rendezvous
6 " The clown knows that life is cruel. The ancient jester's motley coloured costume turned his usually melancholy expression in to a joke. The clown is used to loss. Loss is his prologue. "
― John Berger , Confabulations
7 " Photographs do not translate from appearances. They quote from them. "
― John Berger , Another Way of Telling
8 " History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past "
9 " Nature is energy and struggle. It is what exists without any promise. If it can be thought of by man as an arena, a setting, it has to be thought of as one which lends itself as much to evil as to good. Its energy is fearsomely indifferent. "
― John Berger , Why Look at Animals?
10 " Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion. "
11 " Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural. "
12 " The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. "
13 " Ours is the century of enforced travel of disappearances. The century of people helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon. "
14 " The media network has its idols, but its principal idol is its own style which generates an aura of winning and leaves the rest in darkness. It recognizes neither pity nor pitilessness. "
15 " Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why /but the editorialists forget it /terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking. "
16 " Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream. "
17 " 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. "
18 " Is boredom anything less than the sense of one's faculties slowly dying? "
19 " The transcendental face of art is always a form of prayer. "
20 " Happiness is not something to be pursued, it is something met, an encounter. Most encounters, however, have a sequel; this is their promise. The encounter with happiness has no sequel. All is there instantly. Happiness is what pierces grief. "
