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Literature is the question minus the answer.

— Roland Barthes

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More quotes by Roland Barthes

What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.

Mythologies (1957)

A work has two levels of meaning: literal and concealed.

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.

Mythologies (1957)

By reducing any quality to quantity, myth economizes intelligence: it understands reality more cheaply.

Mythologies (1957)

The bourgeoisie is defined as the social class which does not want to be named.

Mythologies (1957)

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Roland Barthes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.