Jacques Derrida

Deconstruction

Contemporary influential 117 sayings

Sayings by Jacques Derrida

The university is always already a battlefield.

1983 — The University, Where the Absence of the University
Controversial Unverifiable

The trace is the erasure of selfhood.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

The closure of metaphysics is not an end but a limit.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

The political is the experience of the undecidable.

1997 — Politics and Friendship: A Discussion with Jacques Derrida
Controversial Unverifiable

There is no pure event, only repetition.

1967 — Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs
Controversial Unverifiable

The signature is always a promise and a threat.

1984 — Signéponge/Signsponge
Controversial Unverifiable

The archive is always already a place of forgetting.

1995 — Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression
Controversial Unverifiable

The secret is not what is hidden, but what cannot be hidden.

1997 — A Taste for the Secret
Controversial Unverifiable

The monster is always already within.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

The question of the other is the question of the ethical.

1997 — Ethics, Institutions, and the Right to Philosophy
Controversial Unverifiable

The proper name is always already a common name.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

There is no innocent reading.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

The subject is not a substance but an effect of différance.

1967 — Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs
Controversial Unverifiable

The meaning of a text is never exhausted.

1972 — Interview, 'Positions'
Controversial Unverifiable

The supplement is always already at the origin.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

The end of history is not the end of philosophy.

1993 — Specters of Marx
Controversial Unverifiable

The democracy to come is a promise, not a present reality.

2003 — Rogues: Two Essays on Reason
Controversial Unverifiable

The secret is the condition of possibility for communication.

1997 — A Taste for the Secret
Controversial Unverifiable

There is no innocent violence.

1967 — Of Grammatology
Controversial Unverifiable

The university is a site of both conservation and deconstruction.

1983 — The University, Where the Absence of the University
Controversial Unverifiable