Skip to content

True freedom is not a freedom of choice made from a safe distance, like choosing between a strawberry cake or a chocolate cake; true freedom overlaps with necessity, one makes a truly free choice when one's choice puts at stake one's very existence — one does it because one simply "cannot do it otherwise."

— Slavoj Žižek The True Hollywood Left (2007)

Another quote →

Topics

Freedom

More quotes by Slavoj Žižek

Love is what makes sex more than masturbation. If there is no love even if you are really with a partner you masturbate with a partner.

Atheism is not the denial of the existence of God, but having doubts as to whether God is conscious.

As a Marxist, let me add: if anyone tells you Lacan is difficult, this is class propaganda by the enemy.

Last remark in an interview for the CN8 show Nitebeat (2003)

Man as such is nature sick unto death, derailed, run off the rails through a fascination with a lethal Thing.

The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Reading Heidegger against the grain, one discovers a thinker who was, at some points, strangely close to communism.

Less Than Nothing (2012)

All Slavoj Žižek quotes →

You may also like

You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Julian Assange

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

Abraham Lincoln

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Slavoj Žižek (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.