Raoul Vaneigem
Raoul Vaneigem
Raoul Vaneigemis a Belgian writer. He was born in Lessines. After studying romance philology at the Free University of Brusselsfrom 1952 to 1956, he participated in the Situationist International from 1961 to 1970. He currently resides in Belgium and is the father of four children...
NationalityBelgian
ProfessionPhilosopher
CountryBelgium
giving-up real people
Where constraint breaks people, and mediation makes fools of them, the seduction of power is what makes them love their oppression. Because of it, people give up their real riches for a cause that mutilates them; for an appearance that reifies them; for roles that wrest them from authentic life; for a time whose passage defines and confines them.
eruption losing realizing
The eruption of lived pleasure is such that in losing myself I find myself; forgetting that I exist, I realize myself.
real men absence
In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life.
book discover ideally order quotes reader
Ideally a book would have no order in it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
The key is within each of us. No instructions come with it.
few knowledge minds quotes since taken
Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.
complete cycle survive work
Work to survive; survive by consuming; survive to consume: the hellish cycle is complete
centuries discover increasing kick people side standing time
We must discover new frontiers... People have been standing for centuries before a worm-eaten door, making pinholes in it with increasing ease. The time has come to kick it down, for it is only on the other side that everything begins.
balance insult life-is
Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out.
delight preparing festivities
To work for delight and authentic festivity is barely distinguishable from preparing for a general insurrection
submission leashes
Hope is the leash of submission.
wish pleasure greatest-pleasures
What could I wish for the present but to take the greatest pleasure in being what I am?
winning boredom world
We have a world of pleasure to win, and nothing to lose but boredom.
It is entirely up to us to invent our own lives.