Jacques Lacan Quotes

Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.

In the first place, you must pay great attention to the key note.

An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.

The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.

There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world

The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; ... the wise does neither.

The more particular you make something, the more universal it becomes.

Limitation is a good discipline because it discourages inappropriate generalization, which distracts attention from the profound, particular complexity that characterizes anything at all.

If I'm speaking it means that in one way or another when I say, "I'm cold" it belongs to me: I'm cold. But just by saying this it becomes general.

I do not see in what way the face of a man should be a less interesting landscape than any other. A man, the physical person of a man, is a little world, like any other a country, with its towns, and suburbs.. ..As a rule what is needed in a portrait is a great deal of the general, and very little of the particular.

That which exists in nature is a something purely individual and particular. Art, on the contrary, is essentially destined to manifest the general.

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.

Law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table.

God is our name for the last generalization to which we can arrive.

To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.

Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million fresh particulars.

This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance.

Always to see the general in the particular is the very foundation of genius.

The amount of chiaroscuro an idea harbors is the only index of its profundity.

The ideal trademark is one that is pushed to its utmost limits in terms of abstraction and ambiguity, yet is still readable. Trademarks are usually metaphors of one kind or another. And are, in a certain sense, thinking made visible.

Man is made for science; he reasons from effects to causes, and from causes to effects; but he does not always reason without error. In reasoning, therefore, from appearances which are particular, care must be taken how we generalize; we should be cautious not to attribute to nature, laws which may perhaps be only of our own invention.

Sometimes when I generalize, I am saying, 'Let's pretend I am God,' and of course the other person argues that point endlessly. But I notice that if the other person takes a stand for himself and states his thoughts as his thoughts, I pay more attention to what he is saying and look deeper in myself.

But it is a pipe." "No, it's not," I said. It's a drawing of a pipe. Get it? All representations of a thing are inherently abstract. It's very clever.

Surrealism runs through the streets.