Simulacrum Quotes

• What I am, I don't know. I am the simulacrum of myself.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Knows

  "Jean Baudrillard" by Steven Poole, www.theguardian.com. March 7, 2007.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Jean Baudrillard, Mark Poster (1988). “Selected Writings”, p.166, Stanford University Press

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Real, Illusion

  Jean Baudrillard (1994). “Simulacra and Simulation”, p.19, University of Michigan Press

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.

  Jean Baudrillard

  World, Too Much Information, Information Overload

  Jean Baudrillard (1994). “Simulacra and simulation”, Univ of Michigan Pr

  109 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire but our own: The desert of the real itself.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Real, Empires, Here And There

  "The Precession of the Simulacra" (1981) See Korzybski 1

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Real, Believe, Order

  Jean Baudrillard (2001). “Selected Writings”, p.175, Stanford University Press

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• Literature itself is a species of code. You line up symbols and create a simulacrum of life.

  Marcel Theroux

  Literature, Lines, Code

  Marcel Theroux (2013). “Strange Bodies”, p.74, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Deep down, no one really believes they have a right to live. But this death sentence generally stays tucked away, hidden beneath the difficulty of living. If that difficulty is removed from time to time, death is suddenly there, unintelligibly.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Life, Death, Believe

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.67, Verso

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The Sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and the light but the shadow of God.

  Thomas Browne

  Fall, Dark, Shadow Of Death

  'The Garden of Cyrus' (1658) ch. 4

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say can be reduced to signs that constitute faith? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum - not unreal, but simulacrum, that is to say never exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Real, What If, Circuits

  24 Copy quote

• An ad that pretends to be art is - at absolute best - like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.

  David Foster Wallace

  Lonely, Art, Confused

  "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". Essay by David Foster Wallace, February 1, 1997.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• An ad that pretends to be art is – at absolute best – like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you.

  David Foster

  Art, Want Something, Genuine Smiles

  6 Copy quote

• One has never said better how much "humanism", "normality", "quality of life" were nothing but the vicissitudes of profitability.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Quality, Vicissitudes, Said

  Jean Baudrillard (1994). “Simulacra and Simulation”, p.131, University of Michigan Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• This is what terrorism is occupied with as well: making real, palpable violence surface in opposition to the invisible violence of security.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Real, Violence, Terrorism

  Jean Baudrillard (1994). “Simulacra and Simulation”, p.57, University of Michigan Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• They're done by guys who have talked a good game and then have scrambled together the simulacrum of a drama, so actors are habituated to sometimes having to save a picture on the floor because it's usually part of their job, but they'd rather have a writer doing his job, so that they can do theirs. But I like nothing better than working with actors.

  William Monahan

  Jobs, Drama, Games

  Source: collider.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I seem to be inside a kind of artificial environment. Almost like a... a simulacrum of Reiden Lake.

  Christa Faust

  Lakes, Kind, Environment

  4 Copy quote

• Because of the irresistible nature of our own Imagos, I think the replication of it in music is a siren song - we love those tormented songs, and we listen to them over and over and over the way that we smash ourselves into our lovers, or the same kind of lover, over and over. That drive is tireless, until it is resolved. And we can "enjoy" it safely through music, which is a simulacrum we have power over.

  Melissa Febos

  Song, Thinking, Sirens

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Can the vast technology beneath our gaze be anything but a representation? Any optical artifact... The city panorama is a theoretical (ie visual) simulacrum: in short, a picture, of which the preconditions for feasibility are forgetfulness and a misunderstanding of processes.

  Michel de Certeau

  Technology, Cities, Process

  4 Copy quote

• Yet this perhaps is what love does, or the memory of it; it sucks the life from the living, glorying body and leaves it, when love has gone, a shred, a simulacrum - dross, to be swept up from the factory floor, pitiful and dusty, useless... Do all men and women feel love before they die? This force, this source of light, that lies before the sun; glances off mountains and lakes, blinding and dazzling, on a Sunday afternoon; so brilliant you have to guard your soul, fold your arms to shield your heart from the very memory of it.

  Fay Weldon

  Memories, Lying, Heart

  4 Copy quote

• As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.

  David Mitchell

  Moving, Men, Glimpse

  4 Copy quote

• The panorama-city is a 'theoretical' (that is, visual) simulacrum, in short a picture, whose condition of possibility is an oblivion and a misunderstanding of practices.

  Michel de Certeau

  Practice, Cities, Oblivion

  Michel de Certeau (2011). “The Practice of Everyday Life”, p.93, Univ of California Press

  12 Copy quote

  Show source