If nothing were substituted for everything, it would still be too much and too little.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the concept of 'everything' can be overwhelming and inadequate at the same time.
Maurice Blanchot's quote explores the paradox of abundance and scarcity, implying that even if we were to replace 'everything' with 'nothing', the essence of too much and too little remains. This highlights the complexity of existence and the human experience, where our perceptions of fulfillment can often feel paradoxical and elusive.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of existence, this quote could provide an insightful perspective.
I lean over you, your equal, offering you a mirror for your perfect nothingness, for your shadows which are neither light nor absence of light, for this void which contemplates. To all that which you are, and, for our language, are not, I add a consciousness. I make you experience your supreme identity as a relationship, I name you and define you. You become a delicious passivity.
Every artist is linked to a mistake with which he has a particular intimate relation. There is the mistake of Homer, of Shakespeare — which is perhaps, for both, the fact of not existing. Every art draws its origin from an exceptional fault, every work is the implementation of this original fault, from which come to us a new light and a risky conception of plenitude.
To see was terrifying, and to stop seeing tore me apart from my forehead to my throat.
A writer who writes, ''I am alone''... can be considered rather comical. It is comical for a man to recognize his solitude by addressing a reader and by using methods that prevent the individual from being alone. The word alone is just as general as the word bread. To pronounce it is to summon to oneself the presence of everything the word excludes.
To have opinions is to sell out to youself. To have no opinions is to exist. To have every opinion is to be a poet.
The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.
...the life which is best for men, both separately, as individuals, and in the mass, as states, is the life which has virtue sufficiently supported by material resources to facilitate participation in the actions that virtue calls for.
Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren't interested in changing their opinions to agree with God's.
In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.
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