Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
Roland BarthesRead
What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People are often more attracted to the appearance of passion rather than genuine feelings of it.
Roland Barthes suggests that society tends to idolize the outward expression of passion—what it looks like—while often neglecting the authenticity and depth of actual passionate feelings. This indicates a cultural preference for images and representations over real emotional experiences, leading to a superficial understanding of what passion truly is.
Themes
PassionImagePublicAuthenticityRepresentation
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of authenticity in art, one might reference Barthes to illustrate the difference between appearance and reality.
More from Roland Barthes
All quotes →If I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a "weakness" or an "absurdity": it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.)
Roland BarthesRead
The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other.
Roland BarthesRead
The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.
Roland BarthesRead
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.
Roland BarthesRead
All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
Roland BarthesRead
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