[L]et us say that we are obliged to produce the truth by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: we are forced to tell the truth, we are constrained, we are condemned to admit the truth or to discover it.

Truth is not by nature free - nor error servile - but that its production is thoroughly imbued with relations of power.

it is the certainty of being punished and not the horrifying spectacle of public punishment that must discourage crime

Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

If 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.

Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.