“There has been an inversion in the hierarchy of the two principles of antiquity, 'Take care of yourself' and 'Know yourself.'”
“I'm very proud that some people think that I'm a danger for the intellectual health of students.”
“It is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order; it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies.”
“Discipline 'makes' individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise.”
“Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests bodies in depth.”
“There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine.”
“We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for several centuries.”
“My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad.”
“A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions the practices that we accept rest.”
“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am.”
“Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”
“Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.”
“The soul is the prison of the body.”
“Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.”
“Who knows, perhaps one day people will listen more to the piece of God which we call a conscience than to their own desires.”
“You can always—always—give something, even if it is only kindness.”
“We’re all alive, but we don’t know why or what for; we’re all searching for happiness; we’re all leading lives that are different and yet the same.”
“I have often been downcast, but never in despair.”
“Be brave! Let’s remember our duty and not complain; there will be a way out.”
“I want to go on living even after my death.”