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There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it; every old language is immediately compromised, and every language becomes old once it is repeated.

— 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)

Literature is the question minus the answer.

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

Mythologies (1957)

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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.