Quotessence
Home / Authors / Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllThinkingMadnessPoliticalFormMenPeopleRelationIfsKnowsWayOrderPhilosophyDoePowerReasonSocialDiscourseInstitutionsPrisonBook

Famous Michel Foucault Quotes

“The constitution of madness as a mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, affords the evidence of a broken dialogue, posits the separation as already effected, and thrusts into oblivion all those stammered, imperfect words without fixed syntax in which the exchange between madness and reason was made. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about madness, has been established only on the basis of such a silence.”

Has BeensMadeEndsReasonLanguageSilenceCenturyBrokenEvidenceBasesConstitutionMadnessIllnessSeparationMental IllnessDialogueFixedImperfectOblivionPsychiatryThrustMonologuesSyntax
Book:Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry
Create image

“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
Create image

“[T]hus one should not think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason that the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. Where there is desire, the power relation is already present: an illusion, then, to denounce this relation for a repression exerted after the event.”

ThinkingShouldReasonLawDesireSimpleEventsIllusionRelationRepressionRepressed
Book:The History of Sexuality: An Introduction
Create image

“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.”

IfsMenSoulStatesReasonEmotionWiseInfluenceEventsProudGloryIntelligentIdiotInstantReasonableUnexpectedCivilizedPhysiciansIntelligent ManGenevaUnexpected Events
Book:Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
Create image