Author

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

Discipline may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a 'physics' or 'anatomy' of power, a technology.

From Michel Foucault

In political and social analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king.

From Michel Foucault

We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the 'social-worker'-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements.

From Michel Foucault

There are forms of oppression and domination which become invisible - the new normal.

From Michel Foucault

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.

From Michel Foucault

Knowledge doesn't really form part of human nature. Conflict, combat, the outcome of the combat, and, consequently, risk and chance are what gives rise to knowledge. Knowledge is not instinctive; it is counter instinctive, just as it is not natural but counter natural.

From Michel Foucault

It is often said that definitions of Islamic government are imprecise. To me, however, they seemed to have a clarity that was completely familiar and also, it must be said, far from reassuring.

From Michel Foucault

The problem of Islam as a political force is an essential one for our time and for the years to come, and we cannot approach it with a modicum of intelligence if we start out from a position of hatred.

From Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault

Notable Quotes

Authors with Similar Views

Joseph Brodsky

Ferdinand Buisson

Francois Hollande

Henry Miller

Jeremy Rifkin

Authors with Opposing Views

Carl Jung

Francois Hollande

Nelson Mandela

Arne Glimcher

Benjamin Tucker