In many people it is already an impertinence to say 'I'.

Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men.

Thought as such… is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity.

Thus is order ensured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game. It is as if the class from which independent intellectuals have defected takes its revenge, by pressing its demands home in the very domain where the deserter seeks refuge.

The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.

Art is the social antithesis of society, not directly deducible from it.

Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.