Roland Barthes Quotes

Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant.

We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.

I don't talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.

When does an object become a symbol? All I know is you cannot force it.

The world is nothing but 'world-as-meaning.

In every object there is inexhaustible meaning.

In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning.

The closure of the book is an illusion largely created by its materiality, its cover. Once the book is considered on the plane of its significance, it threatens infinity.

One should never mistake pattern for meaning.

Everything means something.

Because we are in the world, we are condemned to meaning, and we cannot do or say anything without its acquiring a name in history.

The need of reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not the same. The basic fallacy , taking precedence over all specific metaphysical fallacies, is to interpret meaning on the model of truth.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.

There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art also can only affect us through symbols.

Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.

Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.

Most people are looking for something to give their life meaning.

If we knew the meaning to everything that is happening to us, then there would be no meaning.

Symbols are important.

Happiness means nothing to me. I just want to have meaning and purpose.

Symbols are important. It depends on how they're used.