Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction
Sayings by Jacques Derrida
The metaphysics of presence is the most massive and fundamental obstacle to thought.
To deconstruct a text is to show how it undermines the philosophies it asserts.
The undecidable is not merely the oscillation between two decisions but the experience of what cannot be decided.
What is proper to man is not reason, but the possibility of madness.
The limit is not an end, but a beginning.
Hospitality is the unconditional welcoming of the other.
The future can only be approached in the form of the absolutely unforeseeable.
Justice, in its very concept, implies the undecidable.
To speak of a 'proper' meaning is always to betray the text.
The book is not a self-sufficient totality.
The history of metaphysics is the history of the belief in presence.
Every reader is a misreader.
The trace is the originary non-presence.
The concept of 'man' is a European invention.
To philosophize is to learn to die.
The event is always singular, unrepeatable.
The gift is impossible.
The proper is always already expropriated.
The end of man is not the end of the world.
The name of God is always already a sign.