Mikhail Bakhtin Quotes
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin was a Russian philosopher of language, literary theorist, and philosophical anthropologist whose work, much of it written in obscurity and exile, transformed twentieth-century literary theory after its rediscovery in the 1960s. Working through long decades of provincial isolation under Stalin, he produced studies of Dostoevsky, Rabelais, and the novel that articulated a philosophy of dialogue in which truth is born between persons rather than within them. The quotes below are attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin, organized by topic.
Mikhail Bakhtin on Love
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Attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin:
“To be is to communicate dialogically.”
Mikhail Bakhtin on Time
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Attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin:
“There is neither a first nor a last word; the contexts of dialogue have no limit.”
Mikhail Bakhtin on Truth
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Attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin:
“Truth is not born nor is it found inside the head of an individual person; it is born between people.”
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Attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin:
“Every word smells of the contexts in which it has lived its life.”
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Attributed to Mikhail Bakhtin:
“The novel is the great dialogic form.”