Slavoj Zizek Quotes

Even though we know freedom as an idea we're not really as free as we think we are.

Intellectual slavery ... will always have as a natural result both political and social slavery.

Only the suppressed word is dangerous.

The National Socialist Party will prevent in the future, by force if necessary, all meetings and lectures which are likely to exercise a depressing influence on the German state.

The masses in this country [Spain] are not like your Americans, nor even like the British. They are slave stock. They are good for nothing but slaves and only when they are used as slaves are they happy.

Suppressing ideas never makes them go away.

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

Civilized men do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains....

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder “censorship,” we call it “concern for commercial viability.”

There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men.

Today, I see that many of our citizens are not free. They are dependent.

What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.

The surest way to make our youth suspect that there may be something in Communism would be for the government to outlaw it.

What should we think of a Southern city or state that forbade a film of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ to be presented?

Any society that starts forbidding certain words or expressions is a society you should be wary about, whether it's the KGB or social consensus that enforces it.

You know when people start talking about freedom they have to be old. They gotta be old-fashioned and really out of touch. Freedom? Well, what's that? Who needs any of that?

There are a lot of challenges Ofglen faces as a Handmaid. She has to live her life for the Commander of her home, Glen, and it is really a bleak life. She has no rights, and her main job is to keep him and the rest of the people in his house happy.

Overly vigorous investigations of ominously ill-defined 'bullying' can themselves constitute a form of bullying.

If the FBI is now in charge of bad taste, we're all doomed.

I have no problem with free speech, but free speech and then silencing your opposition - boy, I have a problem with that.

I see the wielding of a pronoun as something that can be freeing for some members of society but a shackle to others like myself.

As the remaining voices for civil disobedience are suppressed, the political spectrum narrows even further.

In communism, we never had any freedom - of movement, of speech, of press. We didn't even make own decisions for our lives, our future. We were human robots.

Of all the threats to free speech in history, the one the media give the most credibility to without question is the feminist movement, which is trying to rebrand public debate as harassment.

The poet is the voice of the people. And when the poet presents certain ideas, two phrases in one poem can alter a generation's view. So poets have always been feared - and controlled and jailed.