Michel Foucault Quotes

In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

They think that, if we were just smart enough, we'd be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell 'em, and I do tell 'em, Oh, we're plenty smart, oh yeah - we know what's goin' on. And we don't like what's goin' on. And we're not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority!

I've never really subscribed to the theory that repression breeds rebellion. I don't think that's really true.

There are men put on this earth to make laws designed to break the spirits of men. There are those put here to have their spirits broken by those put here to break them. Then there are those who are here to break the laws that break the men who break the spirits of other men. I am one of those men. - Harry West

The powerful don't make revolutions

I fight authority and authority always wins.

Power, however it has evolved, whatever its origins, will not be given up without a struggle.

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

You can bring down governments, you can do a lot of things that are in your own interests even though liberals will get very antsy when you start talking about it.

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty.

I really hate the people in power. I hate them with every fiber of my being. That is what drives me in almost everything I do.

Whenever anyone challenges anything, the powers that be try to paint them as extremists or radicals or whatever. And I think that's actually nonsense.

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

I rebelled against all form of authority, against my grandfather, my step-father, the Church, the police, the government, the bosses. Everything male that was there, and was determining my life.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

Without alienation, there can be no politics.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!

One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

Truths begin by a conflict with the police - and end by calling them in.

We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.