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
Each of us is incomplete compared to someone else - an animal's incomplete compared to a person... and a person compared to God, who is complete only to be imaginary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the idea of incompleteness in various beings and the concept of a complete being as an abstraction.
Georges Bataille's quote suggests that each being, whether animal or human, has its own limitations or incompleteness when compared to another. This reflects a deeper philosophical perspective about the nature of existence and completeness, ultimately leading to the idea that the notion of a perfect or complete being, such as God, is an imaginary construct, highlighting both the aspirational and illusory nature of perfection.
Themes
CompletenessIncompletenessExistenceComparisonPhilosophyGod
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the human condition, this quote can illustrate our inherent limitations compared to an ideal.
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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