Georges Bataille

I think that knowledge enslaves us, that at the base of all knowledge there is a servility, the acceptation of a way…

— Georges Bataille

“The absent and inert girl hanging dreamless from my arms is no more foreign to me than the door or window through…

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

“Our only real pleasure is to squander our resources to no purpose, just as if a wound were bleeding away inside us;…

— Georges Bataille

[F]or academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is…

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

[Zarathustra] never abandoned the watchword of not having any end, not serving a cause, because, as he knew, causes pluck off the…

— Georges Bataille

“Pathetic creatures on their knees... Tirelessly, naively repeating, "Don't take our word for it! Alas, we're not all that logical. We say…

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

Thought does not ennoble us and neither does it differentiate humans from other animals.

— Georges Bataille

I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me…

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

Literature ... is the rediscovery of childhood.

— Georges Bataille

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

— Georges Bataille

By the care she lavishes on her toilet, by the concern she has for her beauty set off by her adornment, a…

— Georges Bataille

The difficulty that contestation must be done in the name of an authority is resolved this: I contest in the name of…

— Georges Bataille

The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light…

— Georges Bataille

The circumstances of my life are paralyzing.

— Georges Bataille

“My life only has a meaning insofar as I lack one: oh, but let me be mad! Make something of all this…

— Georges Bataille

“To others, the universe seems decent because decent people have gelded eyes. That is why they fear lewdness. They are never frightened…

— Georges Bataille

“Poetry leads to the same place as all forms of eroticism — to the blending and fusion of separate objects. It leads…

— Georges Bataille

“The certainty of incoherence in reading, the inevitable crumbling of the soundest constructions, is the deep truth of books. Since appearance constitutes…

— Georges Bataille

“One day or another, it is true, dust, supposing it persists, will probably begin to gain the upper hand over domestics, invading…

— Georges Bataille