168 Quotes by Georges Bataille

Existence as entirety remains beyond any one meaning and it is the conscious presence of humanness in the world inasmuch as this is nonmeaning, having nothing to do other than be what it is, no longer able to go beyond itself or give itself some kind of meaning through action.

The circumstances of my life are paralyzing.

The difficulty that contestation must be done in the name of an authority is resolved this: I contest in the name of contestation what experience itself is.

By the care she lavishes on her toilet, by the concern she has for her beauty set off by her adornment, a woman regards herself as an object always trying to attract men's attention.

Extreme seductiveness is at the boundary of horror

My true church is a whorehouse – the only one that gives me true satisfaction.

Not every woman is a prostitute, but prostitution is the natural apotheosis of the feminine attitude.

Thought does not ennoble us and neither does it differentiate humans from other animals.

A man who finds himself among others is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others. In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the body he touches. Without knowing it, he suffers from the mental darkness that keeps him from screaming that he himself is the girl who forgets his presence while shuddering in his arms.