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
I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Truth is often complex and contradictory, suggesting that understanding it requires grappling with conflict.
In this quote, Georges Bataille suggests that the essence of truth is inherently contradictory and tumultuous. He implies that to truly grasp the nature of truth, one must confront the violent tensions and conflicts that it embodies, rather than seeking a simplistic or singular understanding. This perspective challenges the notion of an absolute truth, instead emphasizing the chaotic and multifaceted reality of human experience.
Themes
TruthContradictionPhilosophyUnderstandingReality
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker might use this quote to challenge the audience's perception of truth in a debate about moral relativism.
More from Georges Bataille
All quotes βA 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.
Georges BatailleRead
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?
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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.
Georges BatailleRead
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
Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.
Georges BatailleRead
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