The Courage of Truth Quotes

“True love is first, love which does not conceal, and it does not conceal in two senses. First, it does not conceal because it has nothing to hide. It has nothing shameful which has to be hidden. It does not shun the light. It is willing, and is such that it is always willing to show itself in front of witnesses. It is also a love which does not conceal its aims. True love does not hide the true objective that it seeks to obtain from the one it loves. it is without subterfuge and does not employ roundabout means with its partner. It does not keep itself out of sight of witnesses, or of its partner. True love is love without disguise. Second, true love is an unalloyed love, that is to say, without mixture of pleasure and displeasure. It is also a love in which sensual pleasure and the friendship of souls do not intermingle. To that extend it is therefore a pure love because unalloyed. Third, true love (alethes eros) is love which is in line with what is right, what is correct. It is a direct (euthus) love. It has nothing contrary to the rule or custom. And finally, true love is love which is never subject to change or becoming. It is an incorruptible love which remains always the same.”
― Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-1984

“There can only be a true life as an other life, and it’s from the point of view of this other life that the ordinary life of ordinary people will be made to appear as precisely other than the true. I live in an other way, and through the very alterity of my life, I show you that what you are looking for is elsewhere than where you are looking, that the road you are taking is an other road than the one you should be taking.”
― Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-1984

“Moreover, it is not entirely without significance that true love was, in Platonic philosophy -- but also, as you know, in a whole sector, a whole domain of Christian spirituality and mysticism -- the form par excellence of the true life. Since Platonism, true love and the true life have traditionally belonged together, and to a large extend Christian Platonism will take up this theme.”
― Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-1984