Quote

Where constraint breaks people, and mediation makes fools of them, the seduction of power is what makes them love their oppression. Because of it, people give up their real riches for a cause that mutilates them for an appearance that reifies them for roles that wrest them from authentic life for a time whose passage defines and confines them.

Raoul Vaneigem

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Raoul Vaneigem
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: March 21
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Time
Roles
Breaks
Mediation
Love
Causes
Fools
Confines
Life
Break
Oppression
Seduction
People
Makes
Riches
Defines
Power
Appearance
Constraints
Give
Whose
Passage
Giving
Fool
Authentic
Wrest
Real
Cause
Passages
Constraint

More quotes by Raoul Vaneigem

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The world of the commodity is a world upside-down, which bases itself not upon life but upon the transformation of life into work.
Raoul Vaneigem
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I do not dream of a gentle revolution. My passion runs to the violence of supersession, the ferocity of a life that renounces nothing.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Work is the opposite of creativity.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Daydreaming subverts the world.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Production and consumption are the nipples of modern society. Thus suckled, humanity grows in strength and beauty rising standard of living, all modern conveniences, distractions of all kinds, culture for all, the comfort of your dreams.
Raoul Vaneigem
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To be rich nowadays merely means to possess a large number of poor objects.
Raoul Vaneigem
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The work of art of the future will be the construction of a passionate life.
Raoul Vaneigem
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As poverty has been reduced in terms of mere survival, it has become more profound in terms of our way of life.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom?
Raoul Vaneigem
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Suffering is the pain of constraints. An atom of pure delight, no matter how small, can hold it at bay.
Raoul Vaneigem
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People without imagination are beginning to tire of the importance attached to comfort, to culture, to leisure, to all that destroys imagination. This means that people are not really tired of comfort, culture and leisure, but of the use to which they are.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Hope is the leash of submission.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Never before has a civilization reached such a degree of a contempt for life never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live.
Raoul Vaneigem
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We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity.
Raoul Vaneigem
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What could I wish for the present but to take the greatest pleasure in being what I am?
Raoul Vaneigem
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To work for delight and authentic festivity is barely distinguishable from preparing for a general insurrection
Raoul Vaneigem
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People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.
Raoul Vaneigem
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Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume the hellish cycle is complete.
Raoul Vaneigem
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The history of our times calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it, so that the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in mid-air but as soon as they look down and see where they are, they fall.
Raoul Vaneigem