Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands...Contemporariness, then, is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disconnection.
Giorgio AgambenTo believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality.
Giorgio AgambenThe camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule.
Giorgio AgambenLife and death are not properly scientific concepts but rather political concepts, which as such acquire a political meaning precisely only through a decision.
Giorgio AgambenModern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system
Giorgio Agamben