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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

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Georges Bataille
Age: 64 †
Born: 1897
Born: September 10
Died: 1962
Died: July 9
Author
Drawer
Librarian
Philosopher
Writer
Bilhom
Pierre Angélique
George Bataille
Joruju Bataiyu
G. Bataiyu
Lord Auch
Pierre Angelique
Awakening
Chaos
Poetry
Heard
Anguished
Universe
Constitute
Night
Reply
Cannot
Loose
Mind
Providence

More quotes by Georges Bataille

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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
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I think that knowledge enslaves us, that at the base of all knowledge there is a servility, the acceptation of a way of life wherein each moment has meaning only in relation to another or others that will follow it.
Georges Bataille
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To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.
Georges Bataille
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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
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The anguish of the neurotic individual is the same as that of the saint. The neurotic, the saint are engaged in the same battle. Their blood flows from similar wounds. But the first one gasps and the other one gives.
Georges Bataille
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Though the immediate impression of rebellion may obscure the fact, the task of authentic literature is nevertheless only conceivable in terms of a desire for fundamental communication with the reader.
Georges Bataille
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But a sort of rupture-in anguish-leaves us at the limit of tears: in such a case we lose ourselves, we forget ourselves and communicate with an elusive beyond.
Georges Bataille
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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
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Inner experience ... is not easily accessible and, viewed from the outside by intelligence, it would even be necessary to see in it a sum of distinct operations, some intellectual, others aesthetic, yet others moral. ... It is only from within, lived to the point of terror, that it appears to unify that which discursive thought must separate.
Georges Bataille
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How cruel my suffering is,—no one is more talkative than I am!
Georges Bataille
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Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit to become delightful, happiness must be tainted with poison.
Georges Bataille
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I teach the art of turning anguish into delight.
Georges Bataille
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[F]or academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit.
Georges Bataille
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Sanity is the lot of those who are most obtuse, for lucidity destroys one's equilibrium: it is unhealthy to honestly endure the labors of the mind which incessantly contradict what they have just established.
Georges Bataille
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Existence as entirety remains beyond any one meaning and it is the conscious presence of humanness in the world inasmuch as this is nonmeaning, having nothing to do other than be what it is, no longer able to go beyond itself or give itself some kind of meaning through action.
Georges Bataille
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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
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I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
Georges Bataille
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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
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The warrior's nobility is like a prostitute's smile, the truth of which is self-interest.
Georges Bataille
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To choose evil is to choose freedom, emancipation from all restraint.
Georges Bataille