The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it's something that theatre can do, but it's rare; it's very rare.
John BergerRead
Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nature itself is not inherently evil; rather, human perception often distorts this view to justify harmful actions.
In this quote, John Berger emphasizes that the natural world is not evil, but rather it is human interpretation and language that often attribute cruelty to it. This misrepresentation can lead to justifying inhumane actions, highlighting the need to reconsider our understanding of nature and our role within it.
Themes
NatureHuman PerceptionCrueltyPhilosophyInhumanity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about environmental ethics, I might cite this quote to illustrate how our misconceptions about nature impact our actions.
More from John Berger
All quotes →Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
John BergerRead
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
John BergerRead
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
John BergerRead
Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.
John BergerRead
Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
John BergerRead
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It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.
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I have a very simple philosophy. One has to separate the abilities from the disabilities. The fact I cannot walk, that I need crutches or a scooter or whatever it is, has nothing to do with my playing the violin.
Itzhak PerlmanRead
Clergyman: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.
H. L. MenckenRead
The judge who sits over the murderer and looks into his face, and at one moment recognizes all the emotions and potentialities and possibilities of the murderer in his own soul and hears the murderer's voice as his own, is at the next moment one and indivisible as the judge, and scuttles back into the shell of his cultivated self and does his duty and condemns the murderer to death.
Hermann HesseRead