“The event, in its emergence, poses its own premises, determining that they were the conditions for its realization. This transition is always the result of a salto mortale, which is a creative act in the sense that it gives the preceding links in the chain of events their meaning.”

“By giving full expression to the contradiction between civil society and the state, the French Revolution radically transformed both its terms. To put it differently: dualism was not abolished but, rather, displaced within the space delimited by the two poles of the contradiction. This created a new split between 'man', a member of civil society, and the 'citizen', a member of the state. It is only by 'abstracting' from his condition as man and his insertion into the organization of civil society that the political subject can become a citizen and make his entry into the political community: it is only as a 'sheer, blank individual' who accepts the fact that the political is divorced from the social that he can take part in the life of the state, which is based on the freedom and equality of its citizens.(...)The political state is 'abstract' in the sense suggested by the etymology of the word; it appears as the residue or the 'precipitate' of the constitutive movement by means of which civil society transcends its own limits to attain political existence, while leaving its internal differences intact, or, rather, transforming them into mere 'differences of social life' 'without significance in political life'.The state is incapable of substantially affecting the contents of civil society, for it is, precisely, a product of civil society's abstraction from itself.”

“The right to make revolution is unconditional, for it alone establishes right.”

“The ideal reasoner would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also the results which would follow from it.”

“It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.”

“the act of vomiting deserves your respect. It's an orchestral event of the gut.”

“It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.”