110+ Paul Virilio Quotes On Education, World And Cinema

Paul Virilio was a French philosopher, urbanist, and cultural theorist. He is best known for his writings on technology, speed, and modern warfare, and for his concept of the "information bomb". He is also known for his criticism of modern architecture and urbanism, and his advocacy of the concept of dromology, the study of speed and technology. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Paul Virilio on love, leadership, life.

Top 10 Paul Virilio Quotes

1. The speed of light does not merely transform the world. It becomes the world. Globalization is the speed of light.
2. There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We'll dream of being blind.
3. Digital messages and images matter less than their instantaneous delivery; the shock effect always wins out over the consideration of the informational content.
4. The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.
5. Images contaminate us like viruses.
6. Wealth is the hidden side of speed and speed the hidden side of wealth.
7. ... the blinding Hiroshima flash... literally photographed the shadow cast by beings and things, so that every surface immediately became war's recording surface, its film.
8. The technologies of virtual reality are attempting to make us see from beneath, from inside, from behind... as if we were God.
9. The true problem with virtual reality is that orientation is no longer possible. We have lost our points of reference to orient ourselves. The de-realized man is a disoriented man.
10. GPS not only played a large and delocalizing role in the war in Kosovo but is increasingly playing a role in social life.

Paul Virilio Short Quotes

• The simulator is an object in itself, which is different from televison and leads to cyberspace.
• Cyberspace is an accident of the real. Virtual reality is the accident of reality itself.
• Cyberspace is acting like God and deals with the idea of God who is, sees and hears everything.
• All future wars, all future accidents will be live wars and live accidents.
• The automation of warfare has, then, come a long way since the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
• Whoever controls the territory possesses it.
• What brought me to Christianity is Incarnation, not Ressurection.
• Now all we have to do to enter the realm of art is to take a car.
• Art is alive because it is mortal.
• I am very interested in and that is what Sun Tzu in his ancient Chinese text calls The Art of War.

Paul Virilio Quotes About World

Thus it is no longer a Caesar or a Napoleon who decides on the fate of any particular war but a piece of software! In short, the political intelligence of war and the political intelligence of society no longer penetrate the techno-scientific world. — Paul Virilio

One day the virtual world might win over the real world. — Paul Virilio

Look at the Intifadah in Jerusalem. One cannot understand that phenomenon, a phenomenon where people, often very young boys, are successfully harassing one of the best armies in the world, without appreciating their freedom to move! — Paul Virilio

The world and man are identical. This is why racism is the most stupid thing in the world. — Paul Virilio

What will prevail is this will to reduce the world to the point where one could possess it. All military technologies reduce the world to nothing. And since military technologies are advanced technologies, what they actually sketch today is the future of the civil realm. — Paul Virilio

As I have said many times before, I was among the first people to experience the German Occupation of France during the Second World War. I was 7-13 years old during the War and did not really internalise its significance. — Paul Virilio

Television exposes the world to the accident. The world is exposed to accidents through television. — Paul Virilio

Because Man is God, and God is Man, the world is nothing but the world of Man - or Woman. — Paul Virilio

As I have said many times before, the speed of light does not merely transform the world. It becomes the world. Globalization is the speed of light. And it is nothing else! — Paul Virilio

Speed now illuminates reality whereas light once gave objects of the world their shape. — Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio Quotes About Cinema

Let us start with the title of War and Cinema. The important part of the title is not War and Cinema. — Paul Virilio

I think that cinema and television have nothing in common. There is a breaking point between photography and cinema on the one hand and television and virtual reality on the other hand. — Paul Virilio

The cinema was certainly an art, but television can't be, because it is the museum of accidents. In other words, its art is to be the site where all accidents happen. But that's its only art. — Paul Virilio

War is cinema, and cinema is war — Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio Quotes About Politics

In industrialized warfare, where the representation of events outstripped the presentation of facts, the image was starting to gain sway over the object, time over space. Soon a conflict of strategic and political interpretation would ensue, with radio and then radar completing the picture. — Paul Virilio

It will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means. — Paul Virilio

In the very near future, and I stress this important point, it will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means. — Paul Virilio

Some of the most dramatic consequences of the Kosovo war are linked to the resumption of the arms race and the suicidal political and economic policies of countries like India and Pakistan where tons of money are currently being spent on atomic weaponry. This is abhorrent! — Paul Virilio

I believe that the politics of intervention and the Kosovo war prompted a fresh resumption of the arms race worldwide. — Paul Virilio

As I have been arguing for a long time now, there is a real need not simply for a political economy of wealth but also for a political economy of speed. — Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio Quotes About Speed

While the human gaze becomes more and more fixed, losing some of its natural speed and sensitivity, photographic shots, on the contrary, become even faster. — Paul Virilio

I pursue through my research on speed and on my study of the organisation of the revolution of the means of transportation. — Paul Virilio

Globalization cannot take shape without the speed of light. — Paul Virilio

Thus my research on dromology, on the logic and impact of speed, necessarily implies the study of the organisation of territory. — Paul Virilio

Today, almost all-current technologies put the speed of light to work. — Paul Virilio

Today, everything is about speed and real time. We are no longer concerned with real space. — Paul Virilio

For instance, in 1999, Bill Gates not only published a new book on work at the speed of thought but also detailed how Microsoft's 'Falconview' software would enable the destruction of bridges in Kosovo. — Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio Quotes About Technology

When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution...Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress. — Paul Virilio

In a way, technologies have negated the transcendental God in order to invent the machine-God. However, these two gods raise similar questions. — Paul Virilio

For example, we have developed an artistic and a literary culture. Nevertheless, the ideals of technological culture remain underdeveloped and therefore outside of popular culture and the practical ideals of democracy. — Paul Virilio

Resistance is always possible! But we must engage in resistance first of all by developing the idea of a technological culture. — Paul Virilio

Art used to be painting, sculpture, music, etc, but now, all technology has become art. Of course, this form of art is still very primitive, but it is slowly replacing reality. — Paul Virilio

For the time being, technologies are colonizing our body through implants. We started with human implants, but research leads us to microtechnological implants. — Paul Virilio

Many people question their religious identity today, not necessarily by thinking of converting to Judaism or to Islam: it's just that technologies seriously challenge the status of the human being. All technologies converge toward the same spot, they all lead to a Deus ex Machina, a machine-God. — Paul Virilio

To someone like Zurbaran, who paints still lifes, lemons and pears are the objects of art. But to the electronics engineer who works on the technologies of virtual reality, the whole reality has become the object of art, with a possibility to substitute the virtual with the real. — Paul Virilio

These new technologies try to make virtual reality more powerful than actual reality, which is the true accident. The day when virtual reality becomes more powerful than reality will be the day of the big accident. Mankind never experienced such an extraordinary accident. — Paul Virilio

I don't believe in simulationism, I believe that the word is already old-fashioned. As I see it, new technologies are substituting a virtual reality for an actual reality. And this is more than a phase: it's a definite change. — Paul Virilio

Paul Virilio Famous Quotes And Sayings

The field of vision is comparable, for me, to the terrain of an archaeological dig. To see is to be on guard, to wait for what emerges from the background, without any name, without any particular interest: what was silent will speak, what is closed will open and will take on a voice. — Paul Virilio

From the original watchtower through the anchored balloon to the reconnaissance aircraft and remote sensing-satellites, one and the same function has been indefinitely repeated, the eye's function being the function of a weapon. — Paul Virilio

Already, viral contamination offers an initial response to the question of the downside of electronic circuits, but another area of research beckons the area of ecological pollution. The pollution not only of air, water, and other substances, but also the unperceived pollution of distances. — Paul Virilio

The thing about collaborators is that you don't know you are one whereas as a member of the resistance, you do. [In WWII,] the worst cases of collaboration weren't among the real collaborators, that official militia, but among the people at large, who were collaborators without knowing it, by a sort of laxity, an apathy. — Paul Virilio

Troops must be fed with ammunition and so on but also with information, with images, with visual intelligence. Without these elements troops cannot perform their duties properly. This is what is meant by the logistics of perception. — Paul Virilio

As I said back in 1984, the idea of logistics is not only about oil, about ammunitions and supplies but also about images. — Paul Virilio

I have said many times before, interactivity is the equivalent of radioactivity. For interactivity effects a kind of disintegration, a kind of rupture. — Paul Virilio

I repeat what I suggest in my book [ Strategie de la deception]. The first deterrence, nuclear deterrence, is presently being superseded by the second deterrence: a type of deterrence based on what I call 'the information bomb' associated with the new weaponry of information and communications technologies. — Paul Virilio

The body has a dimension of simulation. The learning process, for instance: when one learns how to drive a car or a van, once in the van, one feels completely lost. But then, once you have learnt how to drive, the whole van is in your body. It is integrated into your body. — Paul Virilio

There can be no doubt about this. It even held true for the soldiers involved in the Kosovo War. For the soldiers stayed mostly in their barracks! In this way, polar inertia has truly become a mass phenomenon. And not only for the TV audiences watching the war at home but also for the army that watches the battle from the barracks. — Paul Virilio

The creation of a virtual image is a form of accident. This explains why virtual reality is a cosmic accident. It's the accident of the real. — Paul Virilio

Sovereignty no longer resides in the territory itself, but in the control of the territory. And localisation is an inherent part of that territorial control. — Paul Virilio

For the strategies of deception are concerned with deceiving an opponent through the logistics of perception. But these strategies are not merely aimed at the Serbs or the Iraqis but also at all those who might support [Slobodan] Milosevic or Saddam Hussein. — Paul Virilio

However, the Kosovo War took place in orbital space. In other words, war now takes place in 'aero-electro-magnetic space'. It is equivalent to the birth of a new type of flotilla, a home fleet, of a new type of naval power, but in orbital space! — Paul Virilio

We have already seen some instances of systemic risk in recent times in the Asian financial crisis. But what sparked off the Asian financial crisis? Automated trading programmes! — Paul Virilio

In this way, it seems to me that, since 1984, my book on the logistics of perception has been proved totally correct. For instance, almost every conflict since then has involved the logistics of perception, including the war in Lebanon, where Israel made use of cheap drones in order to track Yasser Arafat with the aim of killing him. — Paul Virilio

There is, then, a link between the logistics of perception, the wars in Lebanon and the Gulf as well as with CNN and the Pentagon. — Paul Virilio

France and Germany were opposed to a maritime blockade of the Adriatic Sea without a mandate from the United Nations (UN). So, what we witnessed in Kosovo was an extraordinary war, a war waged solely with bombs from the air. — Paul Virilio

Moreover, it is clear that the era of the information bomb, the era of aerial warfare, the era of the RMA and global surveillance is also the era of the integral accident. — Paul Virilio

You cannot dissociate birth from death, creation from destruction, good from evil. Thus any art is a form of drama standing between the two extreme poles of birth and death, just like life is drama. This is not sad, because to be alive means to be mortal, to pass through. — Paul Virilio

Jean Baudrillard is a friend of mine, I do not agree with him on that one! For me, the significance of the war in Kosovo was that it was a war that moved into space. — Paul Virilio

In this way, history now inscribes itself in real time, in the 'live', in the realm of interactivity. Consequently, history no longer resides in the extension of territory. — Paul Virilio

People make fun of cybersex, but it's really something to take into account: it is a drama, a split of the human being! The human being can now be changed into some kind of spectrum or ghost who has sex at a distance. That is really scary because what used to be the most intimate and the most important relationship to reality is being split. This is no simulation but the coexistence of two separate worlds. — Paul Virilio

If we consider my latest book, Strategie de la deception, what we need to focus on are the other aspects of the same phenomenon. — Paul Virilio

The information bomb gives rise to the integral and globally constituted accident. — Paul Virilio

The high level of the technologies used during the Gulf War makes this conflict quite unique, but the very process of de-realization of the war started in 1945. War occured in Kuwait, but it also occured on the screens of the entire world. The site of defeat or victory was not the ground, but the screen. — Paul Virilio

People agree to say that it is rationality and science which have eliminated what is called magic and religion. But ultimately, the ironic outcome of this techno-scientific development is a renewed need for the idea of God. — Paul Virilio

I believe that philosophy is part of literature, and not the reverse. — Paul Virilio

What is accidented is reality. — Paul Virilio

Despite the economic disaster that is Russia, there are still air shows taking place in the country. — Paul Virilio

Indeed, the truth, the reality of the Kosovo War, was actually hidden behind all the 'humanitarian' faces. — Paul Virilio

Hence not only the crisis of geopolitics and geostrategy but also the shift towards the emergence and dominance of chronostrategy. — Paul Virilio

The media is more concerned with what we feel about the refugees and so on rather than what we think about them. — Paul Virilio

World War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war. — Paul Virilio

Moreover, I would like to say that the sort of polar inertia we witnessed in the Kosovo War, the polar inertia involving 'automated war' and 'war-at-a-distance' is also terribly weak in the face of terrorism. For instance, in such situations, any individual who decides to place or throw a bomb can simply walk away. He or she has the freedom to move. This also applies to militant political groups and their actions. — Paul Virilio

I have always been interested in the architecture of war, as can be seen in Bunker Archeology. However, at the time that I did the research for that book, I was very young. My aim was to understand the notion of 'Total War'. — Paul Virilio

Concepts are mental images. — Paul Virilio

To regain our liberty (and our distance), we must slow the images down. — Paul Virilio

To separate mind from body doesn't make any sense. — Paul Virilio

The globally constituted accident can be compared to what people who work at the stock exchange call 'systemic risk'. — Paul Virilio

For the US, the Kosovo War was a success because it encouraged the development of the Pentagon's 'Revolution in Military Affairs' (RMA). The war provided a test site for experimentation, and paved the way for emergence of what I call in Strategie de la deception 'the second deterrence'. — Paul Virilio

The research on vision machines was mainly conducted at the Stanford Research Institute in the US. So, we can say that the events that took place in the Kosovo War were a total confirmation of the thesis of The Vision Machine. — Paul Virilio

Art has become more than painting, sculpture or music: art is more than Van Gogh painting a landscape or Wagner composing an opera. The whole of reality itself has become the object of art. — Paul Virilio

For example, it was this pack of wolves that sparked off the Rodney King affair a few years ago in Los Angeles. Let us consider the situation: a person videos Rodney King being beaten up by the cops. That person then sends in the footage to the TV station. Within hours riots flare up in the city! — Paul Virilio

For me, the Asian financial crisis of 1998 and the war in Kosovo in 1999 are the prelude to the integral accident. — Paul Virilio

Creation exists only in regard to destruction. Creation is against destruction. — Paul Virilio

'Cyberwar' has nothing to do with the destruction brought about by bombs and grenades and so on. — Paul Virilio

For instance, the Persian Gulf War was a miniature world war. It took place in a small geographical area. In this sense it was a local war. But it was one that made use of all the power normally reserved for global war. — Paul Virilio

Earth is already being integrated into the Pentagon, and the man in the Pentagon is already piloting the world war - or the Gulf War - as if he were a captain whose huge boat would have become his own body. Thus the body simulates the relationship to the world. — Paul Virilio

Today, the army only occupies the territory once the war is over. — Paul Virilio

Technologies first equipped the territorial body with bridges, aqueducts, railways, highways, airports, etc. Now that the most powerful technologies are becoming tiny - microtechnologies, all technologies can invade the body. These micro-machines will feed the body. Research is being conducted in order to create additional memory for instance. — Paul Virilio

All of us are already civilian soldiers, without knowing it...The great stroke of luck for the military class's terrorism is that no one recognizes it. People don't recognize the militarized part of their identity, of their consciousness. — Paul Virilio

Video is originally a de-corporation, a disqualification of the sensorial organs which are replaced by machines. The eye and the hand are replaced by the data glove, the body is replaced by a data suit, sex is replaced by cybersex. All the qualities of the body are transferred to the machine. — Paul Virilio

To me, dance is an extraordinary thing, more extraordinary than most people usually think. Dance preceded writing, speaking and music. When mute people speak their body language, it is true speaking rather than handicap, this is the first word and the first writing. Thus to me, the body is fundamental. — Paul Virilio

GPS are everywhere. They are in cars. They were even in the half-tracks that, initially at least, were going to make the ground invasion in Kosovo possible. — Paul Virilio

Newshounds are people with mini-video cameras, people who are continually taking pictures in the street and sending the tapes in to CNN. These Newshounds are a sort of pack of wolves, continually looking for quarry, but quarry in the form of images. — Paul Virilio

The ideals of technological culture remain underdeveloped and therefore outside of popular culture and the practical ideals of democracy. This is also why society as a whole has no control over technological developments. And this is one of the gravest threats to democracy in the near future. It is, then, imperative to develop a democratic technological culture. — Paul Virilio

I believe that the military-industrial complex is more important than ever. This is because the war in Kosovo gave fresh impetus not to the military-industrial complex but to the military-scientific complex. You can see this in China. — Paul Virilio

While the United States (US) can view the war as a success, Europe must see it as a failure for it and, in particular, for the institutions of the European Union (EU). — Paul Virilio

Television is a media of crisis, which means that television is a media of accidents. — Paul Virilio

Look at the US, look at Russia. Both of these countries are immense geographical territories. But, nowadays, immense territories amount to nothing! — Paul Virilio

The research on cyberspace is a quest for God. To be God. To be here and there. — Paul Virilio

If we look at the Gulf War, the same is also true. Indeed, my work on the logistics of perception and the Gulf War was so accurate that I was even asked to discuss it with high-ranking French military officers. They asked me: 'how is it that you wrote that book in 1984 and now it's happening for real?' My answer was: 'the problem is not mine but yours: you have not been doing your job properly!' — Paul Virilio

For me, Sun Tzu's statement that military force is based upon deception is an extraordinary statement. — Paul Virilio

The Gulf War may not have occurred in the actual global space, but it did occur in global time. And this thanks to CNN and The Pentagon. — Paul Virilio

There is a buddhist proverb which I like a lot. It says: "Every body deserves mercy". That means that every body is holy. — Paul Virilio

It was a total and absolute surprise to find out that what was inside the concentration camps was a sea of skeletons. What is clear to me, therefore, is that while the tragedy of war grinds on, the contemporary aesthetics of the tragedy seem not only confused but, in some way, suspicious. — Paul Virilio

Nowadays, the tragedy of war is mediated through technology. It is no longer mediated through a human being with moral responsibilities. — Paul Virilio

War was my university. Everything has proceeded from there. — Paul Virilio

For the US, GPS are a form of sovereignty! It is hardly surprising, then, that the EU has proposed its own GPS in order to be able to localize and to compete with the American GPS. — Paul Virilio

To a materialist, matter is essential: a stone is a stone, a mountain is a mountain, water is water and earth is earth. As far as I am concerned, I am a materialist of the body, which means that the body is the basis of all my work. — Paul Virilio

Life Lessons by Paul Virilio

1. Paul Virilio's work highlights the potential of technology to both liberate and oppress individuals, emphasizing the need to carefully consider the implications of technological advancement.
2. Virilio's work also emphasizes the importance of considering the ethical implications of technological advancement, and the need to be aware of the potential for technology to be used for ill.
3. Finally, Virilio's work encourages us to be mindful of the potential for technology to have unintended consequences, and to take responsibility for the choices we make in developing and using technology.