Let yourself be carried away by the thoughts of this great French philosopher and take a moment to reflect on your life.
And it is that, there is something in the deep ideas of the philosophers, for example, that move us, that make us identify with them, as if they had the solution to our problem.
- It may interest you: “The 90 best phrases of Friedrich Nietzsche”
For this reason, in this article we bring the best and great phrases of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze so that you can more clearly observe the path you want to travel.
Who was Gilles Deleuze?
As we already mentioned, he was a well-known and influential French philosopher of the 20th century , whose ideas were reflected in numerous philosophical works on life in general, politics, literature, painting and cinema. Whose point of view was always focused on the positive and negative impact of politics in all areas of a country’s culture. He was considered a faithful Marxist, but he was not carried away by closed beliefs.
Despite writing about great figures of modern philosophy, his works were always about society and the control it has over people and how they shape their own lives. Perhaps, because since he was little he was immersed in the damage that the war caused to many families, including his own. But that, with courage and determination, he could devote himself to the path he had decided to travel.
Great phrases of Gilles Deleuze
Here we bring you the most inspiring and great phrases of the works of this French philosopher.
1. Anarchy and unity are one and the same thing, not the unity of the One, but a more strange unity that is only claimed from the multiple
(A thousand plateaus) Anarchy is not always synonymous with destruction.
2. It is always written to give life, to release life wherever it is imprisoned, to trace lines of escape
A beautiful reflection on writing.
3. A philosopher is not only someone who invents notions, he also invents ways of perceiving
A philosopher gives us the gift of flexibility of thought.
4. The characteristic of the capitalist machine is to make the debt infinite.
After all, he only thinks about the money.
5. We are taught that companies have a soul, which is without a doubt the scariest news in the world
Can you imagine how dark it can be?
6. Posing the problem is not simply discovering, it is inventing
(Bergsonism) There is always a solution to everything.
7. The secret of the eternal return is that it does not express in any way an order that is opposed to chaos and that submits it
Very good things can come out of chaos.
8. It is true that philosophy is inseparable from a certain anger against its time, but it also guarantees us serenity
After all, philosophy only seeks tranquility.
9. It is easy to find correspondences between types of society and types of machines, not because the machines are decisive, but because they express the social formations that have originated them and that use them
(Postscript on control societies) It is at this time that we see that society works like a machine.
10. But as sentient beings, we never learn anything
It is in the unconscious where what is learned is lived.
11. Philosophy has always dealt with concepts, and doing philosophy is trying to create or invent concepts
After all, philosophy is the mother of all sciences.
12. Every sensation is a question, even when only silence answers
(Conversations) So never be afraid to ask
13. On the contrary, it is nothing other than chaos, the power to affirm chaos
That is why we must try to contain the chaos, but not suppress it.
14. Literature, as writing, consists of inventing a people that is missing
And that warms us deeply.
15. To desire is to build an agency, to build an ensemble, the ensemble of a skirt, of a ray of sunshine…
So if you want it, build it.
16. Meaning is never a beginning or origin, but rather a product. It does not have to be discovered, restored, or replaced, but must be produced by new machinery.
Unleash your creative ability.
17. The really big problems are only raised when they are solved
(Bergsonism) Because our job is to find what is missing.
18. Who are the television clients? They are no longer the listeners: the television clients are the advertisers; they are the real advertisers. Listeners get what advertisers want…
Television has manipulated everyone’s minds for a long time.
19. We are in a generalized crisis of all places of confinement: prison, hospital, factory, school, family
And today, what is not a crisis?
20. Philosophy is not a Power. Religions, states, capitalism, science, law, opinion or television are powers, but not philosophy
Philosophy is a close proximity to freedom.
21. A book is a small gear of a much more complex external machinery
(Conversations) What are your favorite books?
22. I try to explain that things, people, are made up of very diverse lines, and that they do not always know what line they are on, or where to make the line they are drawing pass
Each person is a different universe.
23. Art is what resists: it resists death, servitude, infamy, shame
But what does not resist is the privation of expression.
24. The space traveled is past, the movement is present, it is the act of traveling
That is why you must leave the past behind and live in the present.
25. We experience joy when a body meets ours and enters into composition with it, and sadness when, on the contrary, an organ or an idea threatens our own coherence
So find people who nurture your being, not destroy it.
26. Desire is revolutionary because it always wants more connections and more agencies
And it is desire that always moves us.
27. Control companies act through machines of a third type, computer machines and computers whose passive risk is interference and whose active risk is piracy and virus inoculation. It is not only a technological evolution, it is a deep mutation of capitalism
(Post-script on control societies) An old reflection of technology, perhaps they have now taken over our routine?
28. The discovery concerns what already exists currently or virtually: it was, therefore, certain that sooner or later it had to arrive
So every discovery is a new opportunity.
29. You lack ears to listen to what you do not have access to from experience
But empathy can bring us closer even if we don’t share the same experience.
30. The invention gives being to what was not and could never have arrived
It is the technological advance that allows us to go further.
31. The family is an ‘interior’ in crisis like all interiors, schoolchildren, professionals, etc.
Not all families are perfect or suitable.
32. A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a court of reason. Or it can be thrown out the window
Unfortunately, much hatred has been generated by the disparity of concepts.
33. Proper names designate forces, events, movements and motives, winds, typhoons, diseases, places and moments before people
Our actions speak louder.
34. Many young people strangely claim to be motivated, they ask for more courses, more permanent training: it is up to them to discover what they are used for, as their elders discovered, not without effort, the purpose of the disciplines
The problem today is that no one wants to search for what they need.
35. Each one of us has his line of the universe to discover, but it is not discovered except by tracing it, tracing its rough line
It is not the destiny that suddenly arrives, but what we do to achieve it.
36. Verbs in the infinitive designate becomings and events that go beyond fashions and times.
And it is what somehow builds the nuances of the story.
37. The superior man intends to lead humanity to perfection, to the culmination
Perfection is not generally synonymous with well-being.
38. The sales service has become the center or the ‘soul’ of the company
Now those sales are synonymous with status.
39. Writing is not imposing a form of expression on a lived matter
Literature comes from the depths of our imagination.
40. Only the act of resistance resists death, whether in the form of a work of art, or in the form of a struggle of men
Resistance is what prevents us from falling into the yoke.
41. A creator is a being who works for pleasure
Just like the rest of the people who should work at what they love to do.
42. What is the relationship between the struggle of men and the work of art? The closest relationship and for me the most mysterious
In art we can express ourselves without censorship.
43. The man is no longer the man locked up, but the man in debt
Nowadays money can give us benefits or be a burden.
44. Do not load life under the weight of superior values, even heroic ones, but create new values that are those of life, that make life light or affirmative
Life is the best institution from which we can learn.
45. It is true that capitalism has kept as constant the extreme misery of three quarters of humanity: too poor for debt, too many for confinement: control will not only have to deal with the dissipation of borders, but also with the explosions of slums and ghettos
Capitalism has become an extreme weight for the quiet life.
46. Writing is an issue with the future, always unfinished, always in progress, and that overflows any living or lived matter
As it is something personal, we can identify ourselves with the writing.
47. Sadness does not make smart. In sadness we are lost. That is why the powers need the subjects to be sad
Always overcome yourself in the face of adversity so that you can move forward.
48. The sublime man no longer needs God to subjugate man. He has replaced God with humanism; the ascetic ideal for the moral ideal and knowledge
Men who are confident and secure do not need to humiliate others.
49. Anxiety has never been a game of culture, intelligence or vivacity
Distress comes from lack of control.
50. The traitor is very different from the cheater: the cheater tries to protect himself from established properties, conquer a territory, and even establish a new order
And our history has been full of cheaters who have nearly ruined the world.
51. When you have a sad affection, it is that a body acts on yours, a soul acts on yours in such conditions and under a relationship that does not agree with yours
This is why you should never let someone have power over you.
52. Man invests himself in the name of heroic values, in the name of man’s values
Values are the pillar of our integrity, but do we know how to take advantage of them?
53. True freedom resides in a power of decision, of constitution of the problems themselves: this power, semi-divine, implies both the disappearance of false problems and the creative emergence of true ones
Decisions can have consequences, but indecisions become heavy burdens forever.
54. In control companies, on the other hand, what is essential is no longer a signature or a number, but a figure
At present, have we become figures of the economy?
55. The cheater has a long future, but he does not have the slightest future
There is no evil that lasts a hundred years, its time always comes.
56. I do not consider myself an intellectual at all, I do not consider myself someone educated, for a simple reason, and that is that when I see someone educated, I am stunned
Gilles teaches us the importance of being humble.
57. The number is a password, while disciplinary societies are regulated by slogans (both from the point of view of integration and from that of resistance)
Now, our status is determined by bank figures.
58. There is no place for fear, nor for hope. Searching new weapons is the only option left
If you don’t take action, you won’t be able to make anything come true.
59. It is not that I am interested in law or laws (law is an empty notion and laws are servile notions) or even the right to rights; what interests me is the jurisprudence
Everyone should be able to access the same opportunities.
60. According to the three preceding determinations, it is what must be understood, what must be willed, what must be represented in what happens.
Every thing that has happened has its reason
61. The numerical language of control is made of figures, which mark access to information, or rejection
And depending on the size of our numbers, we can have more access.
62. The space covered is divisible, and even infinitely divisible, while the movement is indivisible, or rather it does not divide without changing, with each division, its nature
Changes bring many benefits, if we know how to adapt to them.
63. Marketing is now the instrument of social control, and forms the impudent race of our masters
Now we all must be a brand.
64. In the institutions there is a whole movement that is distinguished both from the laws and from the contracts
The law sometimes benefits those who can afford its services.
65. What you want to sell are services, and what you want to buy are shares. It is no longer a capitalism for production, but for the product, that is, for sale and for the market.
Now the fight is to see who can produce the best product.
66. Individuals have become “individuals”, and the masses, in samples, data, markets or banks
What have we become in this economy?
67. They plant trees in our heads: the one of life, the one of knowledge, etc. Everyone claims roots. The power of submission is always arborescent
If you seek to be yourself, do not do what others do for fashion.
68. Those who read Nietzsche without laughing and without laughing a lot, without laughing often, and sometimes out loud, it is as if they did not read it
Good learning is based on criticizing what has been learned and accepting all its sides.
69. The explosion, the splendor of the event is the meaning
Do you give meaning to your life?
70. Undoubtedly, the factory was already familiar with the bonus system, but the company strives more deeply to impose a modulation of each salary, in states of perpetual metastability that go through challenges, contests and extremely comic colloquia
The companies control us now, with a threat plan from the past.
71. The event is not what happens (accident); it is in what happens the pure expressed that beckons us and waits for us
All consequences are the result of our actions.
72. When a body meets another different body or an idea with a different one, it happens either that their relationships are composed forming a more powerful whole, or that one of these decomposes the other and destroys the cohesion of its parts
That is why it is important that you always surround yourself with positive people.
73. Someone cultured does not stop attracting attention: it is an amazing knowledge about everything
But the important thing is that he does it without humiliating anyone.
74. The modular principle of ‘salary to merit’ has not ceased to tempt national education itself: in fact, just as the company replaces the factory, permanent training tends to replace the school, and continuous evaluation
Even education has been classified as a luxury, instead of a natural right.
75. I was interested in movements, collective creations, and not so much in representations
The strength is in the joining.
To the classic question “what do you do?” I always answer “basically I am a psychologist”. In fact, my academic training has revolved around the psychology of development, education and community, a field of study influenced my volunteer activities, as well as my first work experiences in personal services.