1001Philosophers

Luce Irigaray Quotes

Luce Irigaray is a Belgian-born French philosopher, psychoanalyst, and linguist, and one of the most influential feminist thinkers of the late twentieth century. Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One mounted a sustained critique of the masculine economy of Western philosophy and psychoanalysis, in which woman appears only as the negative or the mirror of the masculine subject. The quotes below are attributed to Luce Irigaray, organized by topic.

Luce Irigaray on Freedom

  • Attributed to Luce Irigaray:

    “Woman has not yet taken place; she has not yet had a language of her own.”

Luce Irigaray on Knowledge

  • Attributed to Luce Irigaray:

    “The mirror in which Western philosophy has thought itself was always already masculine.”

  • “In the movement of the proteron te phusei may be found the heart of thought, that which remains veiled in what thought says and which speaking obeys as some secret command. But already, when it speaks, thought no longer speaks what moves it. It no longer retains that emotion even as a fault of speech, as a dark night out of which it would expect to burst forth. Thought excludes the heart that moves it. That which makes thought live is spoiled, set outside of it. But it does not know this.”

    Sexes et Parentés (1987), as translated by G. Gill, Sexes and Genealogies (1993), p. 49

  • “Sexes et Parentés (1987), as translated by G. Gill, Sexes and Genealogies (1993), p. 49”

    In the movement of the proteron te phusei may be found the heart of thought, that which remains veiled in what thought says and which speaking obeys as some secret command. But already, when it speaks, thought no longer speaks what moves it. It no longer retains that emotion even as a fault of speech, as a dark night out of which it would expect to burst forth. Thought excludes the heart that move

Luce Irigaray on Love

  • Attributed to Luce Irigaray:

    “Sexual difference is one of the major philosophical issues, if not the issue, of our age.”

  • Attributed to Luce Irigaray:

    “I love to you means: I am attentive to you, attentive to your becoming.”

  • Attributed to Luce Irigaray:

    “Two subjects must remain two, and yet learn to converse.”