Michel Foucault

The discourse on sexuality has always been a discourse of power.

The regime of truth is not a universal truth, but a historical truth.

The critique of knowledge is always a critique of power.

The task of philosophy is to make visible what is invisible.

Justice must be thought of as a struggle against injustice.

The body is directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it.

We are subjects, not of a king, but of our own discourses.

The human being is a historical construction, not a natural given.

Sexuality is a dense transfer point for relations of power.

The law is not an instrument of justice, but an instrument of power.

The world is not a text, but a prison.

Power is not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, but something that is exercised.

The role of the intellectual is not to tell others what to do, but to question what is taken for granted.

The ultimate challenge is to resist power without becoming subject to another form of power.

I am not a prophet, I am an awakener.

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

There are no relations of power without resistances; the latter are all the more real and effective because they are formed right at the point where relations of power are exercised.

Homosexuality is not a form of desire but something desirable.

I think I have been very careful to avoid saying that power is a bad thing. I’m just saying it’s a difficult thing.

I'm not a prophet. I'm just a historian.