At every moment, step by step, one must confront what one is thinking and saying with what one is doing, what one is.
Michel FoucaultUnreason is in the same relation to reason as dazzlement to the brightness of daylight itself.
Michel FoucaultIf repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge, and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost.
Michel FoucaultMy point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper - and pessimistic - activism.
Michel FoucaultIt is one of my targets to show people that a lot of things that are part of their landscape - that people are universal - are the result of some very precise historical changes. All my analyses are against the idea of universal necessities in human existence. They show the arbitrariness of institutions and show which space of freedom we can still enjoy and how many changes can still be made.
Michel Foucault