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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the heavy burden of omnipotence and the pain of understanding the existence of evil.
Georges Bataille's quote delves into the profound discomfort of divinity, suggesting that embodying God would entail a painful awareness of all existence, including the most horrific aspects of reality. It raises questions about the nature of evil and the responsibilities that come with absolute power, implying that true divinity involves suffering through the understanding of the world's darkest truths.
Themes
GodPainEvilPhilosophySuffering
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a philosophical debate about the nature of divinity and evil.
More from Georges Bataille
All quotes →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.
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I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
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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?
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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.
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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 BatailleRead
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