Michel Foucault Quotes

Authority is quite degrading.

to tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country

Power not only corrupts he who wields the power but those who submit to it. Those who grovel at the feet of power betray their fellows to hide themselves behind the cloak of submission. It is an evil thing.

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.

Harassment is about power---the undue exercise of power by a superior over a subordinate.

In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want — not only you, your whole family and all people like you.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

There's a certain amount of tyranny in all of us to some extent, and in some people it's much more developed than in others. It's a different balance which makes us all different.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

All men would be tyrants if they could.

The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

The scum of the People are most Tyrannical when they get the Power, and treat their Betters with the greatest Insolence.

Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them.

The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.

It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

If you give human beings power over others, their natural tendency is to be fascists.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Power corrupts; but absolute power is really neat.

Power tends to corrupt if you're there too long.