Quotes from Georges Bataille

I equate love (bodies touching indecently) to the limitlessness of being – to nausea, to the sun, and to death. —Georges Bataille, from "La Scissiparié," Oeuvres Completes III . (Editions Flammarion July 27, 1984) Originally published in Les Cahiers de la Pléiade, Spring 1949.

One can always save one's own soul. - Lazare whispered. She uttered the sentence without moving, without even looking up. She gave me the feeling of unshakable conviction.

I approach poetry: but only to miss it.

MORAL AMBIGUITIES constitute a fairly stable system of equilibrium

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.

The ritual of witchcraft is the ritual of an oppressed people.

No great desire exists than a wounded person's need for another wound.

Toujours la générosité s'oppose au mouvement de l'avarice, comme au calcul raisonné la passion.

I fucked her for the first time, next to the corpse. It was very painful for both of us, but we were glad precisely because it was painful.

Evil lies in the fact that passion has grown servile, has placed itself in the service of a legal power that can only exert itself coldly. Pure passion is naturally in revolt and never wants legal power: generally, it does not even have power as its end but ruin, excessive expenditure rapidly destroying power.

The living organism, in a situation determined by the play of energy on the surface of the globe, ordinarily receives more energy than is necessary for maintaining life; the excess energy (wealth) can be used for the growth of a system (e.g., an organism); if the system can no longer grow, or if the excess cannot be completely absorbed in it's growth, it must necessarily be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically.

Ces grandes eaux de la possibilité miraculeuse où d'ailleurs doivent se retrouver la transparence, la richesse et la splendeur apaisante de la mort et de l'univers, supposent l'imagination réunissant ce qui n'est jamais donné qu'en parties.

In this gathering place, where violence is ripe, at the boundary of that which escapes cohesion, he who reflects within cohesion realizes that there is no longer any room for him.

In this gathering place, where violence is rife, at the boundary of that which escapes cohesion, he who reflects within cohesion realizes that there is no longer any room for him.

What I want', were the words she left me with, administering a poison, 'is that you love me even unto death. For my part, it is in death I love you at this very instant. But I don't want your love unless you know I am repulsive, and love me even as you know it.

What I want, is that you love me even unto death. For my part, it is in death I love you at this very instant. But I don't want your love unless you know I am repulsive, and love me even as you know it.

To solve political problems becomes difficult for those who allow anxiety alone to pose them.

The horror and despair at so much bloody flesh, nauseating in part, and in part very beautiful, was fairly equivalent to our usual impression upon seeing one another.

Tutti abbiamo coscienza che la vita è una parodia e che non ha un'interpretazione. Così il piombo è la parodia dell'oro. L'aria la parodia dell'acqua. Il cervello è la parodia dell'equatore. Il coito è la parodia del delitto.

A poet doesn't justify-he doesn't accept-nature completely. True poetry is outside laws. But poetry ultimately accepts poetry.

Poetic delirium has its place in nature. It justifies nature, consents to embellish it. The refusal belongs to clear consciousness, evaluating whatever occurs to it.

Poetry removes one from the night and the day at the same time. It can neither bring into question nor bring into action this world that bids me.

He preferido ser poco inteligible antes que inexacto

the lugubrious grandeur that characterizes the places where blood flows