The practice of S/M is the creation of pleasure.... And that's why S/M is really a subculture. It's a process of invention. S/M isthe use of a strategic relationship as a source of pleasure.

Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.

Political power goes much deeper than one suspects; there are centres and invisible, little-known points of support; its true resistance, its true solidity is perhaps where one doesn't expect it.

'The prison' begins well before its doors. It begins as soon as you leave your house - and even before.

Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made for cutting.

It is meaningless to speak in the name of - or against - Reason, Truth, or Knowledge.

The court is the bureaucracy of the law. If you bureaucratise popular justice then you give it the form of a court.