The blindness that opens the eye is not the one that darkens vision. Tears and not sight are the essence of the eye.
Jacques DerridaRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The acceptance of death can lead to a deeper sense of freedom and consciousness.
In this quote, Jacques Derrida suggests that an awareness and acknowledgment of death allows individuals to live more freely and authentically. By confronting mortality and embracing the inevitability of death, one gains a form of liberation from fear and societal constraints, fostering a more profound understanding of life and personal existence.
Themes
DeathFreedomConsciousnessLifePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about embracing life experiences, one might quote Derrida to emphasize the importance of recognizing mortality.
More from Jacques Derrida
All quotes βEverything is arranged so that it be this way, this is what is called culture.
Jacques DerridaRead
No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language.
Jacques DerridaRead
Psychoanalysis has taught that the dead β a dead parent, for example β can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts.
Jacques DerridaRead
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 DerridaRead
Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology.
Jacques DerridaRead
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