cyn > cyn's Quotes

“Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions- to define, classify, control, and regulate people.”
― Michel Foucault

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action.”
― Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

“Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."

[The Minotaur]”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”
― Michel Foucault

“Le fou ce ne sera plus l’exilé, celui qu’on repousse dans les marges de nos villes, mais celui qu’on rend étranger à lui même en le culpabilisant d’être celui qu’il est.”
― Michel Foucault

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.”
― Lemony Snicket

“madness is the false punishment of a false solution, but by its own virtue it brings to light the real problem, which can then be truly resolved.”
― Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

“It is meaningless to speak in the name of - or against - Reason, Truth, or Knowledge.”
― Michel Foucault

“Because they claim to be concerned with the welfare of whole societies, governments arrogate to themselves the right to pass off as mere abstract profit or loss the human unhappiness that their decisions provoke or their negligence permits. It is a duty of an international citizenship to always bring the testimony of people's suffering to the eyes and ears of governments, sufferings for which it's untrue that they are not responsible. The suffering of men must never be a mere silent residue of policy. It grounds an absolute right to stand up and speak to those who hold power.”
― Michel Foucault, Power

“Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable.”
― Michel Foucault, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

“When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.”
― Albert Camus, The Rebel

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Albert Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners

“I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.”
― Kafka Franz, Diaries, 1910-1923