Flusser Quotes & Sayings

If we could know as intimately as we know our more immediate parents the long line of ancestors through whom the family spirit has passed on its way to us, we should probably become fatalists in face of the apparently overwhelming evidence that there is nothing in us that has not come to us from, or at least through, the Family. Family portrait galleries are a striking confirmation of the persistence of characteristics which ultimately govern the fortunes of successive generations. — Helen Bosanquet

The act of photography is like going on a hunt in which photographer and camera merge into one indivisible function. This is a hunt for new states of things, situations never seen before, for the improbable, for information. — Vilem Flusser

All incoming bits of information have, simultaneously, a tentacular, optic, and sexual dimension. Its world is not doubtful, but surprising; vampyroteuthic thinking is an unbroken stream of Aristotelian shock. — Vilem Flusser

Human engagement for the storage of information in opposition to death cannot be measured with the same scales used by the natural scientist. Carbon-dating tests measure the natural time according to the information loss of specific radioactive atoms. However, the artificial time of human freedom ("historical time") cannot be measured by simply turning carbon-dating formulas around, so that they now measure the accumulation of information. — Vilem Flusser

For there is a general desire to be endlessly remembered and endlessly repeatable. — Vilem Flusser

He who writes must master the rules of grammar. He who shoots photographs needs only to follow the instructions as given by the camera ... This leads to the paradox that the more people shoot photographs, the less they are capable of deciphering them. — Vilem Flusser

I wish my father could be around. — Franz Wright

As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the "sacredness of human life" remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains. — Leon Trotsky

Thinking is the hardest work we do. — Henry Ford

With every (informative) photograph, the photographic program becomes poorer by one possibility while the photographic universe becomes richer by one realization. — Vilem Flusser

People are like, "Why are you all dressed up? Did you dress up just for me?" I'm like "No, I dressed up because I'm an adult and I felt like putting on my suit." But I love it. Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren are my two heroes of clothing designers. — Paul Feig

Brains supersede brawn. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Benedict suddenly had to get away. It was either that or kill the twittering ninnyhammer, and with so many witnesses, he didn't think he could get away with it. — Julia Quinn

The task of a philosophy of photography is to reflect upon this possibility of freedom - and thus its significance - in a world dominated by apparatuses; to reflect upon the way in which, despite everything, it is possible for human beings to give significance to their lives in the face of the chance necessity of death. Such a philosophy is necessary because it is the only form of revolution left open to us. — Vilem Flusser

Kid's don't care how many sermons you preach to them. The only sermon they'll hear is how you live your life in front of them. — Bruce Van Horn

Photographers, it is true, do not work but they do do something: They create, process, and store symbols. — Vilem Flusser

Our thoughts, feelings, desires and actions are being robotized; 'life' is coming to mean feeding apparatuses and being fed by them. In short: Everything is becoming absurd. So where is there room for human freedom? — Vilem Flusser

Custom is a shroud that conceals everything. Not without first encountering the uncustomary will we be able to recognize what is customary and, more importantly, to change it. Such is the impulse behind our conversation with the vampryoteuthis — Vilem Flusser

Photographers encode their concepts as photographic images so as to give others information, so as to produce models for them and thereby to become immortal in the memory of others. — Vilem Flusser

You got no choice but to be friendly, he told it, being Chace bossy but the heretofore-unknown cute kind. My heart melted more. The kitty lifted a paw and pressed it to Chace's nose. Chace grinned at him. The rest of me melted. — Kristen Ashley

When I feel comfortable, I just like to sing and hum, and I don't even know I'm doing it. But sometimes someone will come over to me like, 'I love that song you were singing, but it's distracting.' — Daisy Ridley

Human beings forget they created the images in order to orientate themselves in the world. Since they are no longer able to decode them, their lives become a function of their own images: Imagination has turned into hallucination. This — Vilem Flusser

Changing the question 'free from what?' into 'free for what?'; this change that occurs when freedom has been achieved has accompanied me on my migrations like a basso continuo. This is what we are like, those of us who are nomads, who come out of the collapse of a settled way of life. — Vilem Flusser

Communication is an artificial, intentional, dialogic, collective act of freedom, aiming at creating codes that help us forget our inevitable death and the fundamental senselessness of our absorb existence. — Vilem Flusser

There is no difference between dark skin and light skin if you are both black. You are not inferior or superior, you are the same race. — Angela Khristin Brown

When you think of it, people may rub elbows and still have an ocean or two between them. — B.M. Bower

Both those taking snaps and documentary photographers, however, have not understood 'information.' What they produce are camera memories, not information, and the better they do it, the more they prove the victory of the camera over the human being. — Vilem Flusser