Georges Bataille Quotes - Page 3

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• The emotional element which gives an obsessive value to communal existence is death.

  Georges Bataille

  Emotional, Giving, Elements

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• We did not lack modesty—on the contrary—but something urgently drove us to defy modesty together as immodestly as possible.

  Georges Bataille

  Together, Modesty, Contrary

  Georges Bataille (1977). “Story of the eye”

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• The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.

  Georges Bataille

  Crush, Men, Being Free

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• The circumstances of my life are paralyzing.

  Georges Bataille

  Circumstances

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Guilty”

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• A judgment about life has no meaning except the truth of the one who speaks last, and the mind is at ease only at the moment when everyone is shouting at once and no one can hear a thing.

  Georges Bataille

  Judging, Mind, Ease

  Georges Bataille (1983). “L'abbé C: A Novel”, Marion Boyars Publishers

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• It seems impossible, in fact, to judge the eye using any word other than seductive, since nothing is more attractive in the bodies of animals and men. But extreme seductiveness is probably at the boundary of horror.

  Georges Bataille

  Eye, Animal, Men

  Georges Bataille (1985). “Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939”, p.17, Manchester University Press

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• [Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal return] is what makes moments caught up in the immanence of return suddenly appear as ends. In every other system, don't forget, these moments are viewed as means: Every moral system proclaims that "each moment of life ought to be motivated." Return unmotivates the moment and frees life of ends.

  Georges Bataille

  Mean, Return, Doctrine

  "On Nietzsche". Book by Georges Bataille, p. xxxiii, 1945.

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• In the helter-skelter of this book, I didn't develop my views as theory. In fact, I even believe that efforts of that kind are tainted with ponderousness. Nietzsche wrote "with his blood," and criticizing, or, better, experiencing him means pouring out one's lifeblood. It was only with my life that I wrote the Nietzsche book that I had planned.

  Georges Bataille

  Believe, Book, Mean

  "On Nietzsche". Book by Georges Bataille, pp. xxiv-xxv, 1945.

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• Realism gives me the impression of a mistake. Violence alone escapes the feeling of poverty of those realistic experiences. Only death and desire have the force that oppresses, that takes one's breath away. Only the extremism of desire and death enable one to attain the truth.

  Georges Bataille

  Mistake, Giving, Feelings

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• What does physical eroticism signify if not a violation of the very being of its practitioners? – A violation bordering on death, bordering on murder?

  Georges Bataille

  Doe, Murder, Violation

  Georges Bataille (1962). “Erotism”, p.17, City Lights Books

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• Crime is a fact of the human species, a fact of that species alone, but it is above all the secret aspect, impenetrable and hidden. Crime hides, and by far the most terrifying things are those which elude us.

  Georges Bataille

  Elude Us, Scary, Secret

  Georges Bataille (1991). “The Trial of Gilles de Rais”, Amok Books

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• The total person is first disclosed ... in areas of life that are lived frivolously.

  Georges Bataille

  Firsts, Persons, Areas

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

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• Eroticism, it may be said, is assenting to life up to the point of death

  Georges Bataille

  May, Said

  Georges Bataille (1962). “Erotism”, p.11, City Lights Books

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• If I give up the viewpoint of action, my perfect nakedness is revealed to me.

  Georges Bataille

  Giving Up, Perfect, Viewpoints

  Georges Bataille (2004). “On Nietzsche”, p.27, A&C Black

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• Philosophy finds itself to be no longer anything but the heir to a fabulous mystical theology, but missing a God and wiping the slate clean.

  Georges Bataille

  Philosophy, Missing, Heirs

  "'L'Expérience Intérieure' ('Inner Experience')". Book by Georges Bataille, translated by Leslie Anne Boldt, p. 9, 1988.

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• Indeed, the direction of the future is only there in order to elude us.

  Georges Bataille

  Elude Us, Order, Elude

  Georges Bataille (2012). “Literature and Evil”, p.25, Penguin UK

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• The great monuments are raised up like dams, pitting the logic of majesty and authority against all the shady elements: it is in the form of cathedrals and palaces that Church and State speak and impose silence on the multitudes.

  Georges Bataille

  Silence, Church, Dams

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• Obscenity is our name for the uneasiness which upsets the physical state associated with self-possession, with the possession of a recognized and stable individuality.

  Georges Bataille

  Self, Names, Upset

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

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• I remain in intolerable non-knowledge, which has no other way out than ecstasy itself.

  Georges Bataille

  Way, Ecstasy

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Inner Experience”, p.12, SUNY Press

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• Eroticism is the approval of life unto death.

  Georges Bataille

  Approval

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.

  Georges Bataille

  Moving, Light, Essence

  "The Dualist Materialism of Georges Bataille". Paper by Denis Hollier. Yale French Studies No. 78 ("On Bataille"), pp. 124-139, www.jstor.org. September 26, 1990.

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• By inner experience I understand that which one usually calls mystical experience: the states of ecstasy, of rapture, at least of meditated emotion. But I am thinking less of confessional experience, to which one has had to adhere up to now, that of an experience laid bare, free of ties, even of an origin, of any confession whatever. This is why I don't like the word mystical.

  Georges Bataille

  Thinking, Mystical Experiences, Ties

  Georges Bataille (1988). “Inner Experience”, p.3, SUNY Press

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• The difficulty that contestation must be done in the name of an authority is resolved this: I contest in the name of contestation what experience itself is.

  Georges Bataille

  Names, Done, Authority

  Georges Bataille (2014). “Inner Experience”, p.19, SUNY Press

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• The preceding criticism justifies the following definition of the entire human: human existence as the life of "unmotivated" celebration, celebration in all meaning of the word: laughter, dancing, orgy, the rejection of subordination, and sacrifice that scornfully puts aside any consideration of ends, property, and morality.

  Georges Bataille

  Laughter, Sacrifice, Dancing

  "On Nietzsche". Book by Georges Bataille, p. xxxii, 1945.

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• How cruel my suffering is,—no one is more talkative than I am!

  Georges Bataille

  Suffering, Talkative

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