Michel Foucault Quotes

A collection of quotes by Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, social theorist, and historian of ideas. He is considered one of the most influential figures in post-structuralism and is known for his critical analyses of power, knowledge, and the social construction of truth. Born in Poitiers, France, Foucault studied philosophy and psychology, eventually earning a doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Paris.

Foucault's work challenged traditional notions of power and knowledge, arguing that they are not fixed or objective but rather dynamic, contingent, and ultimately used to assert control over individuals and societies. His famous works include "Madness and Civilization," "The Birth of the Clinic," "Discipline and Punish," and "The History of Sexuality." These works delve into various subjects such as the history of mental illness, the development of modern medicine, the surveillance and disciplinary mechanisms in society, and the regulation of human sexuality.

Foucault's ideas have had a profound impact on a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies. He emphasized the importance of understanding power dynamics and the ways in which knowledge is produced, circulated, and utilized within social institutions. Despite his premature death at the age of 57, Foucault's intellectual legacy continues to shape contemporary discourse on topics such as social control, the nature of truth, and the workings of power.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

Michel Foucault


In its function, the power to punish is not essentially diff

In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.

Michel Foucault


It is pointless to ask: Why then is sex so secret? What is t

It is pointless to ask: Why then is sex so secret? What is this force that so long reduced it to silence and has only recently relaxed its hold somewhat, allowing us to question it perhaps, but always in the context of and through its repression? In reality, this question, so often repeated nowadays, is but the recent form of a considerable affirmation and a secular prescription: there is where the truth is; go see if you can uncover it. [...] It is reasonable therefore to ask first of all: What is this injunction? Why this great chase after the truth of sex, the truth in sex?

Michel Foucault

Truth Philosophy Sex Repression The History Of Sexuality

Delirium and dazzlement are in a relation which constitutes

Delirium and dazzlement are in a relation which constitutes the essence of madness, exactly as truth and light, in their fundamental relation, constitute classical reason.

Michel Foucault

Truth Light

What is constitutive is the action that divides madness, and

What is constitutive is the action that divides madness, and not the science elaborated once this division is made.

Michel Foucault

Science Action

We demand that sex speak the truth [...] and we demand that

We demand that sex speak the truth [...] and we demand that it tell us our truth, or rather, the deeply buried truth of that truth about ourselves wich we think we possess in our immediate consciousness.

Michel Foucault

Truth Sex Sexuality Foucault History Of Sexuality Truth Saying

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an inv

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

Michel Foucault

Humanity

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. An

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than politicians think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

Michel Foucault

Ideas

Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms

Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.

Michel Foucault

Madness

The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in th

The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker -judge.

Michel Foucault

Judgment Judging

The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political wi

The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).

Michel Foucault

Intelligence

Psychoanalysis can unravel some of the forms of madness; it

Psychoanalysis can unravel some of the forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise of unreason. It can neither limit nor transcribe, nor most certainly explain, what is essential in this enterprise.

Michel Foucault

Psychiatry

Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work b

Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.

Michel Foucault

Prison

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority an

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

Michel Foucault

Conscience

The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the imag

The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the outlaw, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.

Michel Foucault

Crime

What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has bec

What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.

Michel Foucault

Art

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all,

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

Michel Foucault

Power

Power is not an institution, and not a structure neither is

Power is not an institution, and not a structure neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

Michel Foucault

Power

Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it b

Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden appearance. It's not a night twinkle with stars, an illuminated sleep, nor a drowsy vigil. It is the very edge of consciousness.

Michel Foucault

Chance

If repression has indeed been the fundamental link between p

If repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge, and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost.

Michel Foucault

Age