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 BatailleRead
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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that reality is an imitation or distortion of deeper truths.
Georges Bataille's quote reflects his philosophical view that the world we see is not an absolute truth, but rather a parody or imitation of deeper, often hidden realities. This perspective encourages a critical examination of appearances, suggesting that what we perceive is often a deceptive representation of a more profound underlying nature.
In practice
In a discussion about perception in art, this quote can illustrate how representations vary from their original inspirations.
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.
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.
I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
What does physical eroticism signify if not a violation of the very being of its practitioners? β A violation bordering on death, bordering on murder?
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.
Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.
It's so disappointing, to put it mildly, that people know so much about my life. Because it means that they're always trying to look at my books in terms of my life.
I have firmly decided to bite the dust with a minimum of medical assistance when my time comes, and up to then to sin to my wicked heart's content.
I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.
One pretends to do something, or copy someone or some teacher, until it can be done confidently and easily in what becomes one's own style
Not to discontinue our allegiance, in this case, would be to join with the sovereign in promoting the slavery and misery of that society, the welfare of which, we ourselves, as well as our sovereign, are indispensably obliged to secure and promote, as far as in us lies.
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (expecting all change now). In this stage, we embrace the reality that while we're not yet what we will be, we're also no longer what we used to be.
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