Georges Bataille Quotes

Quotes about:

• Eroticism differs from animal sexuality in that human sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboos. Desire in eroticism is the desire that triumphs over the taboo. It presupposes man in conflict with himself.

  Georges Bataille

  Sex, Animal, Men

  Georges Bataille (1977). “Death and Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo”, Arno Press

  71 Copy quote

• A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.

  Georges Bataille

  Kissing, Cannibalism

  57 Copy quote

• The need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.

  Georges Bataille

  Needs, Passionate, Destroyed

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Guilty”

  50 Copy quote

• I don't want your love unless you know i am repulsive,and love me even as you know it.

  Georges Bataille

  And Love, Want, Knows

  Georges Bataille (1972). “My mother”, Jonathan Cape

  74 Copy quote

• Extreme seductiveness is at the boundary of horror

  Georges Bataille

  Horror, Boundaries, Extremes

  29 Copy quote

• To choose evil is to choose freedom, emancipation from all restraint.

  Georges Bataille

  Evil, Restraint, Emancipation

  19 Copy quote

• Not every woman is a prostitute, but prostitution is the natural apotheosis of the feminine attitude.

  Georges Bataille

  Attitude, Apotheosis, Feminine

  45 Copy quote

• I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.

  Georges Bataille

  Believe, Literature, Faces

  Georges Bataille (1984). “Violent silence: celebrating Georges Bataille”

  11 Copy quote

• It is clear that the world is purely parodic, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.

  Georges Bataille

  World, Form, Parody

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939”, p.5, U of Minnesota Press

  38 Copy quote

• Eroticism cannot be entirely revealed without poetry.

  Georges Bataille

  Georges Bataille (1989). “The Tears of Eros”, p.177, City Lights Books

  8 Copy quote

• Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit; to become delightful, happiness must be tainted with poison.

  Georges Bataille

  Happiness, Poison, Literature

  Georges Bataille (1972). “My mother”, Jonathan Cape

  7 Copy quote

• Nothing is more necessary or stronger in us than rebellion.

  Georges Bataille

  Stronger, Rebellion

  Georges Bataille (2004). “The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge”, p.185, U of Minnesota Press

  19 Copy quote

• The chaos of the mind cannot constitute a reply to the providence of the universe. All it can be is an awakening in the night, where all that can be heard is anguished poetry let loose.

  Georges Bataille

  Night, Mind, Awakening

  19 Copy quote

• If I want to realize totality in my consciousness, I have to relate myself to an immense, ludicrous, and painful convulsion of all of humanity.

  Georges Bataille

  Humanity, Want, Realizing

  Georges Bataille (2004). “On Nietzsche”, p.26, A&C Black

  3 Copy quote

• In what will survive me I am in harmony with my annihilation.

  Georges Bataille

  Harmony, Annihilation

  4 Copy quote

• We have in fact only two certainties in this world - that we are not everything and that we will die.

  Georges Bataille

  Two, World, Facts

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Inner Experience”, p.32, SUNY Press

  33 Copy quote

• A man who finds himself among others is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others. In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the body he touches. Without knowing it, he suffers from the mental darkness that keeps him from screaming that he himself is the girl who forgets his presence while shuddering in his arms.

  Georges Bataille

  Girl, Men, Knowing

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939”, p.6, Manchester University Press

  38 Copy quote

• You perhaps now know that desire reduces us to pulp.

  Georges Bataille

  Desire, Pulp, Knows

  Georges Bataille (1972). “My mother”, Jonathan Cape

  13 Copy quote

• The sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space.

  Georges Bataille

  Space, Tigers

  Georges Bataille (1988). “The accursed share: an essay on general economy”, Zone Books (NY)

  37 Copy quote

• The warrior's nobility is like a prostitute's smile, the truth of which is self-interest.

  Georges Bataille

  Warrior, Self, Interest

  Georges Bataille (1989). “Theory of religion”

  6 Copy quote

• I teach the art of turning anguish into delight.

  Georges Bataille

  Inspirational, Art, Delight

  Georges Bataille (2014). “Inner Experience”, p.40, SUNY Press

  5 Copy quote

• We want to decipher skies and paintings, go behind these starry backgrounds or these painted canvases and, like kids trying to find a gap in a fence, try to look through the cracks in the world.

  Georges Bataille

  Kids, Sky, Trying

  34 Copy quote

• Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one's rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.

  Georges Bataille

  Dream, Knowing, Giving

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939”, p.24, U of Minnesota Press

  7 Copy quote

• I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought me to despair?

  Georges Bataille

  Despair, Innocence, Blame

  Georges Bataille (1972). “My mother”, Jonathan Cape

  24 Copy quote

• The power of death signifies that this real world can only have a neutral image of life, that life's intimacy does not reveal it's dazzling consumption until the moment it gives out.

  Georges Bataille

  Real, Giving, Doe

  Georges Bataille (1989). “Theory of religion”, Zone Books (NY)

  30 Copy quote

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