1001Philosophers

Roland Barthes Quotes on Knowledge

Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, semiotician, and essayist. This page collects quotes attributed to Roland Barthes on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Roland Barthes:

    “The death of the author is the birth of the reader.”

  • Attributed to Roland Barthes:

    “Literature is the question minus the answer.”

  • Attributed to Roland Barthes:

    “The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture.”

  • “La forme bâtarde de la culture de masse est la répétition honteuse: on répète les contenus, les schèmes idéologiques, le gommage des contradictions, mais on varie les formes superficielles: toujours des livres, des émissions, des films nouveaux, des faits divers, mais toujours le même sens.”

    The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition: content, ideological schema, the blurring of contradictions—these are repeated, but the superficial forms are varied: always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning. | Modern," in The Pleasure of the Text (1975)
  • “The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!”

    Sentence," in The Pleasure of the Text (1975)
  • “The bourgeoisie is defined as the social class which does not want to be named .”

    p. 138