“The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the reflection, his infinite speculation on the master. And start to speak.”

—  Jacques Derrida, book Writing and Difference

Cogito and The History of Madness, p.37 (Routledge classics edition)
Writing and Difference (1978)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the reflection, his infinite speculation on the master. And st…" by Jacques Derrida?
Jacques Derrida photo
Jacques Derrida58
French philosopher (1930-2004) 1930–2004

Related quotes

Cao Xueqin photo

“All, insubstantial, doomed to pass,
As moonlight mirrored in the water
Or flowers reflected in a glass.”

Cao Xueqin book Dream of the Red Chamber

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (c. 1760), Chapter 5

Jacques Derrida photo

“This book, admirable in so many respects, power in its break and style, is even more intimidating for me in that, having formely had the good fortune to study under Michel Foucault, I retain the consciousness of an admiring and grateful disciple. Now, the disciple's consciousness, when he starts, I would not say to dispute, but to engage in dialogue with the master or, better, to articulate the interminable and silent dialogue which made him into a disciple-this disciple's consciousness is an unhappy consciousness.”

Jacques Derrida book Writing and Difference

Cogito and The History of Madness (Routledge classics edition)
Writing and Difference (1978)

Cassandra Clare photo

“The thing about the Mirror is that no one knows where it is. In fact, no one knows what it is.”
"It’s a mirror,” Simon said. “You know – reflective, glass. I’m just assuming.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Baruch Spinoza photo

“Offer with me reverently a tribute to the manes of the holy, rejected Spinoza. The high World-Spirit pervaded him; the Infinite was his beginning and his end; the Universe was his only and his everlasting love. In holy innocence and in deep humility he beheld himself mirrored in the eternal world, and perceived how he also was its most worthy mirror. He was full of religion, full of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, he stands there alone and unequalled; master in his art, yet without disciples and without citizenship, sublime above the profane tribe.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1799) [original in German]
S - Z

Richard Burton photo

“A brimming pool running disturbingly deep…His voice is urgent and keen… He turned interested speculation into awe as soon as he started to speak.”

Richard Burton (1925–1984) Welsh actor

Kenneth Tynan of British theatre, in “Life: Richard Burton”

George Bernard Shaw photo

“Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul.”

George Bernard Shaw Back to Methuselah

The She-Ancient, in Pt. V
Source: 1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul. But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Pablo Picasso photo

“When I hear people speak of the evolution of an artist, it seems to me that they are considering him standing between two mirrors that face each other and reproduce his image an infinite number of times, and that they contemplate the successive images of one mirror as his past, and the images of the other mirror as his future, while his real image is taken as his present. They do not consider that they all are the same images in different planes…”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Paris 1923
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 311
Quotes, 1920's

“I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

He sido para mí, discípulo y maestro. Y he sido un buen discípulo, pero un mal maestro.
Voces (1943)

Jack Vance photo

“The less a writer discusses his work—and himself—the better. The master chef slaughters no chickens in the dining room; the doctor writes prescriptions in Latin; the magician hides his hinges, mirrors, and trapdoors with the utmost care.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Afterword to "The Bagful of Dreams" in The Jack Vance Treasury (2007). First appeared in Epoch (1775), ed. Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood.

Related topics