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Quotes from On Nietzsche — Georges Bataille

1897–1962 France

← All quotes by Georges Bataille

13 quotes

To choose evil is to choose freedom—“freedom, emancipation from all restraint.”

On Nietzsche (1945)

Human entirety can only be what it is when giving up the addiction to others’ ends.

On Nietzsche (1945)

It is the positive practice of freedom, not the negative struggle against particular oppression, that has lifted me above a mutilated existence.

On Nietzsche (1945)

Humanity-attached-to-the-task-of-changing-the-world, which is only a single and fragmentary aspect of humanity, will itself be changed in humanity-as-entirety.

On Nietzsche (1945)

Nothing radically changes when instead of human satisfaction, we think of the satisfaction of some heavenly being! God’s person displaces the problem and does not abolish it.

On Nietzsche (1945)

An intention that rejects what has no meaning in fact is a rejection of the entirety of being.

On Nietzsche (1945)

Life is whole only when it isn’t subordinate to a specific object that exceeds it. In this way, the essence of entirety is freedom.

On Nietzsche (1945)

The total person is first disclosed … in areas of life that are lived frivolously.

On Nietzsche (1945)

If I give up the viewpoint of action, my perfect nakedness is revealed to me.

On Nietzsche (1945)

Entirety exists within me as exuberance … in empty longing … in … the desire to burn with desire.

On Nietzsche (1945)

We can’t rely on anything. Except ourselves. Ludicrous responsibility devolves on us, overwhelms us. In every regard, right up the present, people always have relied on each other—or God.

On Nietzsche (1945)

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.

On Nietzsche (1945)

[Zarathustra] never abandoned the watchword of not having any end, not serving a cause, because, as he knew, causes pluck off the wings we fly with.

On Nietzsche (1945)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Georges Bataille (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.