If I only did what I can do, I wouldn't do anything Jacques Derrida More Quotes by Jacques Derrida More Quotes From Jacques Derrida Psychoanalysis has taught that the dead – a dead parent, for example – can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts. Jacques Derrida scary powerful parent The blindness that opens the eye is not the one that darkens vision. Tears and not sight are the essence of the eye. Jacques Derrida eye essence sight Learning to live ought to mean learning to die - to acknowledge, to accept, an absolute mortality - without positive outcome,or resurrection, or redemption, for oneself or for anyone else. That has been the old philosophical injunction since Plato: to be a philosopher is to learn how to die. Jacques Derrida philosophical plato mean I was wondering myself where I am going. So I would answer you by saying, first, that I am trying, precisely, to put myself at a point so that I do not know any longer where I am going. Jacques Derrida answers trying firsts That is what deconstruction is made of: not the mixture but the tension between memory, fidelity, the preservation of something that has been given to us, and, at the same time, heterogeneity, something absolutely new, and a break. Jacques Derrida mixtures break memories There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l'avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l'avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival. Jacques Derrida unexpected able real One often speaks without seeing, without knowing, without meaning what one says. Jacques Derrida seeing speak knowing There is nothing outside the text Jacques Derrida deconstruction Within the university... you can study without waiting for any efficient or immediate result. You may search, just for the sake of searching, and try for the sake of trying. So there is a possibility of what I would call playing. It's perhaps the only place within society where play is possible to such an extent. Jacques Derrida waiting play education Peace is only possible when one of the warring sides takes the first step, the hazardous initiative, the risk of opening up dialogue, and decides to make the gesture that will lead not only to an armistice but to peace. Jacques Derrida gestures opening-up risk 1) Différance is the systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other. This spacing is the simultaneously active and passive (the a of différance indicates this indecision as concerns activity and passivity, that which cannot be governed by or distributed between the terms of this opposition) production of the intervals without which the "full" terms would not signify, would not function. Jacques Derrida differences play mean Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets. Jacques Derrida creativity imagination pet If things were simple, word would have gotten around. Jacques Derrida simple-words simple ifs The poet…is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs…the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds. Jacques Derrida names play men There is no rigorous and effective deconstruction without the faithful memory of philosophies and literatures, without the respectful and competent reading of texts of the past, as well as singular works of our own time. Deconstruction is also a certain thinking about tradition and context. Mark Taylor evokes this with great clarity in the course of a remarkable introduction. He reconstitutes a set of premises without which no deconstruction could have seen the light of day. Jacques Derrida reading philosophy memories I always dream of a pen that would be a syringe. Jacques Derrida communication would-be dream I speak only one language, and it is not my own. Jacques Derrida my-own language speak Whatever precautions you take so the photograph will look like this or that, there comes a moment when the photograph surprises you. It is the other's gaze that wins out and decides. Jacques Derrida surprise winning looks To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend. Jacques Derrida All sentences of the type 'deconstruction is X' or 'deconstruction is not X', a priori miss the point, which is to say that they are at least false. As you know, one of the principal things at stake in what is called in my texts 'deconstruction', is precisely the delimiting of ontology and above all of the third-person present indicative: S is P. Jacques Derrida ontology missing science
