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Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Michel Foucault Quotes

“In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, man's dispute with madness was dramatic debate in which he confronted the secret powers of the world; the experience of madness was clouded by images of the Fall and the Will of God, of the Beast and the Metamorphosis, and of all the marvelous secrets of Knowledge”

MenWorldAgeFallSecretMiddleMadnessDebateGods WillDramaticBeastMarvelousDisputesMiddle AgesRenaissanceMetamorphosisCloudedRenaissance Man
Book:Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
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“I'm very proud that some people think that I'm a danger for the intellectual health of students. When people start thinking of health in intellectual activities, I think there is something wrong. In their opinion I am a dangerous man, since I am a crypto-Marxist, an irrationalist, a nihilist.”

PeopleThinkingMenOpinionDangerousDangerStudentsProudActivityIntellectualMarxistNihilistDangerous Man
Book:Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault
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“In the Renaissance, madness was present everywhere and mingled with every experience by its images or its dangers. During the classical period, madness was shown, but on the other side of bars; if present, it was at a distance, under the eyes of a reason that no longer felt any relation to it and that would not compromise itself by too close a resemblance. Madness had become a thing to look at: no longer a monster inside oneself, but an animal with strange mechanisms, a bestiality from which man had long since been suppressed.”

IfsMenLooksLongReasonEyeFeltSidesAnimalDangerStrangePeriodsMadnessRelationDistanceOneselfMonstersBarsCompromiseMechanismRenaissanceResemblance
Book:Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
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“Because they claim to be concerned with the welfare of whole societies, governments arrogate to themselves the right to pass off as mere abstract profit or loss the human unhappiness that their decisions provoke or their negligence permits. It is a duty of an international citizenship to always bring the testimony of people's suffering to the eyes and ears of governments, sufferings for which it's untrue that they are not responsible. The suffering of men must never be a mere silent residue of policy. It grounds an absolute right to stand up and speak to those who hold power.”

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Author:Michel Foucault
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“But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technological intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.”

MenHas BeensRealSoulBodyPoliticalExistenceEffectsObjectsExerciseIllusionReflectionPhilosophicalInstrumentsPrisonProfoundFactorsMasteryTechnologicalInvitedMisunderstandingTheologianInterventionAnatomyReal MenSubjection
Author:Michel Foucault
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“Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.”

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Book:Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
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