Raoul Vaneigem quotes

Daily life is governed by an economic system in which the production and consumption of insults tends to balance out. (Raoul Vaneigem)
Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom? View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
To be rich nowadays merely means to possess a large number of poor objects. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
The world of the commodity is a world upside-down, which bases itself not upon life but upon the transformation of life into work. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
Purchasing power is a license to purchase power. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
As poverty has been reduced in terms of mere survival, it has become more profound in terms of our way of life. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
Never before has a civilization reached such a degree of a contempt for life; never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live. (Raoul Vaneigem)
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. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
The eruption of lived pleasure is such that in losing myself I find myself; forgetting that I exist, I realize myself. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
Our task is not to rediscover nature but to remake it. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
What could I wish for the present but to take the greatest pleasure in being what I am? View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
Work is the opposite of creativity. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
It is entirely up to us to invent our own lives. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume; the hellish cycle is complete. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem
There are more truths in twenty-four hours of a man's life than in all the philosophies. View quote
Raoul Vaneigem

Raoul Vaneigem

Occupation: Belgian Philosopher
Born: March 21, 1934
Quotes count: 20