270 Quotes by John Berger

It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.This more, it proposes,will make us in some way richer - even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour. (P. 125)

The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play, not with form, but with time.

Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.

Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.

You can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events.

Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.

Directors like Satyajit Ray, Rossellini, Bresson, Buñuel, Forman, Scorsese, and Spike Lee have used non-professional actors precisely in order that the people we see on the screen may be scarcely more explained than reality itself. Professionals, except fo the greatest, usually play not just the necessary role, but an explanation of the role.

Art is the provocation for talking about enigma and the search for sense in human life. One can do that by telling a story or writing about a fresco by Giotto or studying how a snail climbs up a wall.

What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.