Philosophy Quotes

"We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act."

"The capacity to blush is peculiar to man, and it is a capacity which seems to relate exclusively to moral feeling."

"I have nothing to do with the origin of man. That subject is out of doors in my work."

"A person may, I think, reasonably doubt whether the belief in God has produced any great benefits to mankind."

"The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals."

"Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind."

"When reading the Gospels, one is continually struck by the difficulty of applying ethical doctrines to modern life."

"In science, one must challenge what is commonly believed."

"Affect is not just individual; it circulates through populations and shapes political possibilities."

"Animality and humanity are not fixed categories but constantly negotiated boundaries."

"The body is not a private possession but a site of social inscription."

"We cannot separate pleasure from politics; they are always entangled."

"The sovereign subject is an illusion; we are always dependent, always relational."

"We must think about the political economy of emotion and affect."

"We must develop what I call a 'phenomenology of the bind' to understand constraint."

"The sovereign individual is a fiction; we are always already collective."

"The body is not a natural given but a site of inscription and possibility."

"We are oriented toward objects and others through what I call 'direction.'"

"Orientation is about direction, about where we are heading."

"Orientation is a matter of repetition and habit."

"The line between inside and outside is blurred."

"Orientation is about what we are drawn toward."

"The line between human and nonhuman is not fixed."

"Orientation is about promise, about potential."

"The line between subject and object is permeable."

"Orientation is a matter of becoming, not being."

"The measure of our philosophy is how it changes the way we live."

"Philosophy is the art of living well."

"The body is not opposed to culture, to language, or to the social. The body is what comes to culture, to language, and to the social."

"Sexual difference is one of the major philosophical issues of all time, yet one of the most covered up in the history of philosophy."