188 Quotes by Slavoj Zizek

What characterizes a really great thinker is that they misrecognize the basic dimension of their own breakthrough.

Liberals always say about totalitarians that they like humanity, as such, but they have no empathy for concrete people, no? OK, that fits me perfectly. Humanity? Yes, it's OK – some great talks, some great arts. Concrete people? No, 99% are boring idiots.

Come on. I don't have any problem violating my own insights in practice.

¿Dónde ves a los marxistas en el movimiento por la corrección política? ¿Ves en ellos algún esfuerzo por cambiar a la sociedad? Porque yo creo que sólo pelean por una hipermoralización de la sociedad que es en sí misma una forma de admitir su derrota.

[Subjectivity] is irreducible: we cannot get rid of it; it continues to haunt every attempt to overcome it.

Σε ένα σύμπαν όπου όλοι αναζητάμε το αληθινό πρόσωπο κάτω από το προσωπείο, ο καλύτερος τρόπος να παραπλανήσουμε είναι να φορέσουμε το προσωπείο της ίδιας της αλήθειας

I mostly considered my professors idiots.

Are, however, the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the US: the absence of resentment and envy, deep indifference towards the non-believer's way of life.

Do not blame people and their attitudes: the problem is not corruption or greed, the problem is the system that pushes you to be corrupt. The solution is not, "Main Street, not Wall Street," but to change the system where Main Street cannot function without Wall Street.