Jacques Lacan quotes - page 2

Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, influential in the development of psychoanalytic theory. His reinterpretations of Freud, especially his concepts of the mirror stage and the symbolic order, have had a lasting impact on philosophy, literature, and psychology. He continues to inspire and provoke debate in academic and clinical circles worldwide. Here are 32 of his quotes:

We emphasize that such a form of communication is not absent in man, however evanescent a naturally given object may be for him, split as it is in its submission to symbols.

Jacques Lacan

Psychoanalysis is a terribly efficient instrument, and because it is more and more a prestigious instrument, we run the risk of using it with a purpose for which it was not made for, and in this way we may degrade it.

Jacques Lacan

The knowledge that there is a part of the psychic functions that are out of conscious reach, we did not need to wait for Freud to know this!

Jacques Lacan

Since Freud, the center of man is not where we thought it was; one has to go on from there.

Jacques Lacan

Writings scatter to the winds blank checks in an insane charge. And were they not such flying leaves, there would be no purloined letters.

Jacques Lacan

As is known, it is in the realm of experience inaugurated by psychoanalysis that we may grasp along what imaginary lines the human organism, in the most intimate recesses of its being, manifests its capture in a symbolic dimension.

Jacques Lacan