The Accursed Share Quotes

“The miraculous moment is the moment when anticipation dissolves into NOTHING. It is the moment when we are relieved of anticipation, man's customary misery, of the anticipation that enslaves, that subordinates the present moment to some anticipated result. Precisely in the miracle, we are thrust from our anticipation of the future into the presence of the moment, of the moment illuminated by a miraculous light, the light of the sovereignty of life delivered from its servitude”
― Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume II: The History of Eroticism and Volume III: Sovereignty

“The laughter or the tears break out in the vacuum of thought created by their object in the mind. But these moments, like the deeply
rhythmed movements of poetry, of music, of love, of dance, have the power - to capture - and endlessly recapture the moment that
counts, the moment of rupture, of fissure. As if we were trying to arrest the moment and freeze it in the constantly renewed gasps
of our laughter or our sobs. The miraculous moment when anticipation dissolves into NOTHING, detaching us from the ground on
which we were groveling, in the concatenation of useful activity”
― Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume II: The History of Eroticism and Volume III: Sovereignty