Discourse Quotes

“Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.”
― Philip K. Dick

“as soon as we renounce fiction and illusion, we lose reality itself; the moment we subtract fictions from reality, reality itself loses its discursive-logical consistency.”
― Slavoj Žižek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology

“In America, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and it is certainly useful to have a few when a pollster shows up. But these are opinions of a quite different roder from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century opinions. It is probably more accurate to call them emotions rather than opinions, which would account for the fact that they change from week to week, as the pollsters tell us. What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. I am using this world almost in the precise sense in which it is used by spies in the CIA or KGB. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information--misplace, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information--information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“I can do everything with my language but not with my body. What I hide by my language, my body utters. I can deliberately mold my message, not my voice. By my voice, whatever it says, the other will recognize "that something is wrong with me". I am a liar (by preterition), not an actor. My body is a stubborn child, my language is a very civilized adult...”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world.”
― David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

“Don't bother to argue anything on the Internet. And I mean, ANYTHING.... The most innocuous, innocent, harmless, basic topics will be misconstrued by people trying to deconstruct things down to the sub-atomic level and entirely miss the point.... Seriously. Keep peeling the onion and you get no onion.”
― Vera Nazarian

“One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.”
― Marcel Proust

“My discourse leads to the truth; the mind is great and guided by this teaching is able to arrive at some understanding. When the mind has understood all things and found them to be in harmony with what has been expounded by the teachings, it is faithful and comes to rest in that beautiful faith.”
― Hermes Trismegistus

“Discourse is not life; its time is not your time; in it, you will not be reconciled to death; you may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying you will make a man that will live longer than he.”
― Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language

“Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.”
― Thomas Carlyle

“Talk lives in a man’s head, but sometimes it is very lonely because in the heads of many men there is nothing to keep it company - and so talk goes out through the lips.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

“There is nothing in discourse that is not to be found in a sentence.”
― Roland Barthes, Image - Music - Text

“The real purpose of the opposition is to minimize the amount of money the ruling party will have stolen from the people at the end of its term.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“We are all full of discourses that we only half understand and half mean.”
― Rae Armantrout

“[…] marginile unei cărţi nu sunt niciodată clar şi riguros trasate: dincolo de titlu, de primele rânduri şi de punctul final, mai presus de configuraţia sa internă şi de forma care îi conferă autonomie, ea se află prinsă într-un sistem de trimiteri la alte cărţi, la alte texte, la alte fraze: este un nod într-o reţea.”
― Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language

“I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great persons, and to make of a man’s wit and words competitive parade is, in my opinion, very unbecoming a man of honor.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“By redirecting the focus of our lives from families and communities to institutions and networks, we, in effect, anoint a machine our king.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“The discourse around the practice of dowry intertwined the individual rights of women within the paradox of patrilocality, a woman’s traditional position and role with her natal and matrimonial family, and the privileged position of men within the institution of marriage. Women are being considered as the `valiant keepers of the tradition’ of marriage, how violent it is, rather than as humans or citizens endowed with political rights. The discourse also ignored the tensions between women as individuals, as citizens, and women as daughters, wives, and daughters-in-law. Upholding patriarchy and not women’s emancipation remains the goal of such socio-legal debate.”
― Shalu Nigam

“The paradox of wokeism is that, in its quest for inclusivity, it often becomes exclusionary, shutting down conversations deemed uncomfortable or offensive. This narrowing of acceptable discourse harms the essence of free speech, as it places arbitrary boundaries on what can be said or joked about. Comedy, in particular, serves as a barometer for societal norms and challenges our preconceptions. Suppressing comedic expression not only hampers artistic freedom but also stifles the very laughter that can bridge divides and foster understanding.”
― James William Steven Parker

“English: "Some ‘nonsenses’ are misunderstood meanings."

Česky: „Některé ‚nesmysly‘ jsou nepochopené smysly.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“English: "Translation is needed even within what mistakenly appears to us like one language."

Česky: „Překládat je potřeba i v rámci toho, co se nám mylně zdá jako jeden jazyk.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“Низка людей, які працюють у цій галузі, починаючи з таких постструктуралістів, як Лакан і Дерріда, писали в такий спосіб, який, здавалося, навмисне затуманював їхні думки й захищав від відповідальності за суперечності і слабку логіку.”
― Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents

“English: "Misunderstanding also arises from the assumption that people understand each other."

Česky: „Nedorozumění vzniká i z domněnky, že si lidé rozumí.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“I assign a type of extended schooling called “homework,” so that the effect of surveillance, if not the surveillance itself, travels into private households, where students might otherwise use free time to learn something unauthorized from a father or mother, by exploration or by apprenticing to some wise person in the neighborhood.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“Networks like schools are not communities, just as school training is not education.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“A combination of television and the stresses peculiar to two-income or single-parent families has swallowed up most of what used to be family time as well. Our kids have no time left to grow up fully human and only thin-soil wastelands to do it in.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“I want to see how people can operationalize kindness online. It would be good for people to take that as a value from which to work, before launching into things that are about destruction and about vilification.”
― Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“ولكن من الصعب جداً التمييز بين التعليم الذي يخدم الطلبة حقاً في حياتهم الراهنة والمستقبلية، من ناحية، وتلقين أيديولوجيات الجماعات أو المنظمات القوية في المجتمع، أو منع الطلاب من تطوير قدراتهم النقدية، من ناحية أخرى. وما يزال من الصعب على المرء أن يركز اللوم على أحد المدرسين أو إحدى القطع المختارة في الكتاب الدراسي المنهجي، لأنّ شكل التأثير قد يكون أكثر انتشاراً وتعقيداً وعالمية وتفاقماً وتشعباً. وبالتأكيد يمكن أن تلتحق جميع الأطراف المعنية: بدءاً من وزارة التعليم التي تقوم بإصدار المناهج الدراسية إلى الكُتّاب، أو المؤلفين والناشرين لهذه الكتب التعليمية، وكذلك لجان المعلمين التي توافق عليها، وأخيراً المعلمين الذين يدرسونها؛ إذ قد يكونون جميعاً مقتنعين بأن هذه الكتب جيدة لتعليم الأطفال. (ص50)”
― Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse and Power

“إن السيطرة على الخطاب العام هي سيطرة على العقل العام، ومن ثم - بصورة غير مباشرة - سيطرة على ما يريده العامة وما يفعلونه، أي على إرادة الجمهور ونشاطه. ولا يحتاج المرء إلى الإكراه إذا كان قادراً على الإقناع والإغواء، والتلقين، أو إن كان بارعاً في التلاعب بالناس.

ووفقاً لذلك من الواجب تعريف النخب الرمزية اليوم - مثل السياسيين والصحفيين والكتّاب وأساتذة الجامعات والمعلمين والمحامين والموظفين البيروقراطيين، وجميع الذين لديهم مدخل خاص إلى الخطاب العام، أو مديري الأعمال القادرين بصورة غير مباشرة على السيطرة على هذا المنفذ، مثل أصحاب إمبراطوريات وسائل الإعلام - بأنهم أصحاب سلطة.”
― Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse and Power

“The strange thing, dear reader, is that the materialistic modern ignorance we live in which has stripped women of comfort, happiness and dignity considers the Prophet's (ﷺ) marriage to Aisha as a shubha (allegation) to be defended because of her young age. One truly wonders how the corrupt dare to challenge the pure, and how failure dares to disparage success! What is strange is that we Muslims accept this labeling of the most successful and beautiful marriage as a shubha! We add it to the group of shubha(s) and start the case for defense. We should have asked from the beginning, "What specifically is the problem, so that we can respond to it?" Why do you –objectors– assume that we accept your standards?!

It is strange that we allow Islam haters who defeat us militarily in every
despicable way to also defeat us psychologically by occupying our minds
and souls. So here we are: Judging our religion, our history, and our Prophet's (ﷺ) tradition according to our opponents' standards!

Accepting the classification of a part of religion as a shubha means losing half the battle. If you try to defend it using the standards of your opponent you lose the other half!”
― Eyad Qunaibi, ندى تشتكي لعائشة