Surviving - that is the other name of a mourning whose possibility is never to be awaited. Jacques Derrida More Quotes by Jacques Derrida More Quotes From 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 ontologymissingscience The traditional statement about language is that it is in itself living, and that writing is the dead part of language. Jacques Derrida traditionallanguagewriting Who ever said that one was born just once? Jacques Derrida bornsaid Contrary to what phenomenology- which is always phenomenology of perception- has tried to make us believe, contrary to what our desire cannot fail to be tempted into believing, the thing itself always escapes. Jacques Derrida perceptiondesirebelieve I say things that contradict each other, that are in real tension with each other, that compose me, that make me live, and that will make me die. Jacques Derrida tensiondiesreal Beyond the touchline there is nothing. Jacques Derrida football If you read philosophical texts of the tradition, you'll notice they almost never said 'I,' and didn't speak in the first person. From Aristotle to Heidegger, they try to consider their own lives as something marginal or accidental. What was essential was their teaching and their thinking. Biography is something empirical and outside, and is considered an accident that isn't necessarily or essentially linked to the philosophical activity or system. Jacques Derrida philosophicalteachingthinking Even if we're in a state of hopelessness, a sense of expectation is an integral part of our relationship to time. Hopelessness is possible only because we do hope that some good, loving someone could come. If that's what Heidegger meant, then I agree with him. Jacques Derrida heideggerloving-someoneexpectations What is called "objectivity," scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation) imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, firmly established, or rooted in a network of conventions ... and yet which still remains a context. Jacques Derrida conventionsobjectivitybelieve The end approaches, but the apocalypse is long lived. Jacques Derrida apocalypseendslong Everything is arranged so that it be this way, this is what is called culture. Jacques Derrida cultureway We are all mediators, translators. Jacques Derrida mediatorstranslators The trace I leave to me means at once my death, to come or already come, and the hope that it will survive me. It is not an ambition of immortality; it is fundamental. I leave here a bit of paper, I leave, I die; it is impossible to exit this structure; it is the unchanging form of my life. Every time I let something go, I live my death in writing. Jacques Derrida ambitionwritingmean A determination or an effect within a system which is no longer that of a presence but of a diffrance, a system that no longer tolerates the opposition of activity and passivity, nor that of cause and effect, or of indetermination and determination, etc., such that in designating consciousness as an effect or a determination, one continues - for strategic reasons that can be more or less lucidly deliberated and systematically calculated - to operate according to the lexicon of that which one is de-limiting. Jacques Derrida lexiconetcdetermination Such a caring for death, an awakening that keeps vigil over death, a conscience that looks death in the face, is another name for freedom. Jacques Derrida caringnameslooks The only attitude (the only politics--judicial, medical, pedagogical and so forth) I would absolutely condemn is one which, directly or indirectly, cuts off the possibility of an essentially interminable questioning, that is, an effective and thus transforming questioning. Jacques Derrida medicalcuttingattitude As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene. Jacques Derrida generalitiesscenelanguage Each time this identity announces itself, someone or something cries: Look out for the trap, youre caught. Take off, get free, disengage yourself. Jacques Derrida cryidentitylooks I’m no good for anything except taking the world apart and putting it together again (and I manage the latter less and less frequently). Jacques Derrida lattertogether-againworld It is to have a compulsive, repetitive, and nostalgic desire for the archive, an irrepressible desire to return to the origin, a homesickness, a nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of absolute commencement Jacques Derrida archivesreturndesire
