Georges Baille was a librarian at Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; however, he was a man of many interests. Philosophy, economics, erotism, and poetry all helped form Bataille's philosophy on civil society.
Bataille was born on September 10, 1897 and was raised by a suicidal mother and a blind father. His ideas and philosophy, however, did not differentiate from other mid-20th century philosophers. His ideas helped pave way for contemporary theory.
In 1935 Bataille, along with Breton and Roger Callois, established an anti-Fascist group named Contre-Attaque. And in 1936 helped form The College of Sociology.
Bataille was the founder of several journals and litearary groups, including a secret society. According to legend, each member of the secret society agreed to sacrifice a victim during their inauguration. However, no one agreed to be the executioner and the group was disbanned before World War II.
In 1955, he was diagnosed with cerebral arteriosclerosis. Georges Bataille died on July 8th, 1962 in Paris, France.
Bataille's famous novels include My Mother, The Impossible, and Blue of Noon.
Crime is a fact of the human species, a fact of that species alone, but it is above all the secret aspect, impenetrable and hidden. Crime hides, and by far the most terrifying things are those which elude us.
I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.
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.
Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.
Life has always taken place in a tumult without apparent cohesion, but it only finds its grandeur and its reality in ecstasy and in ecstatic love.
The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.
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.
I was not even satisfied with the usual debauchery, because the only thing it dirties is debauchery itself, while, in some way or other, anything sublime and perfectly pure is left intact by it. My kind of debauchery soils not only my body and my thoughts, but also anything I may conceive in its course, that is to say, the vast starry universe, which merely serves as a backdrop.