Cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination. Antonin Artaud More Quotes by Antonin Artaud More Quotes From Antonin Artaud However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itself often prevents people from distinguishing between order and those who stand for order, and leads them in practice to respect individuals under the pretext of respecting order itself. Antonin Artaud practice order ideas For the lost are lost by nature, all your ideas of moral regeneration will make no difference, there is AN INNATE DETERMINISM, there is an undeniable incurability in suicide, crime, idiocy, madness, there is an invincible cuckoldry in man, there is a congenital weakness of the character, a castration of the mind. Antonin Artaud suicide character men The race of prophets is extinct. Europe is becoming set in its ways, slowly embalming itself beneath the wrappings of its borders, its factories, its law-courts and its universities. The frozen Mind cracks between the mineral staves which close upon it. Antonin Artaud race law europe And if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames. Antonin Artaud artistic flames victim By suicide I introduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will ... now I choose the direction of my thought and the direction of my faculties, my tendencies, my reality. Antonin Artaud suicidal suicide reality When I think about myself, my thought seeks itself in the ether of a new space. I am on the moon as others are on their balconies. I participate in planetary gravitation in the fissures of my mind. Antonin Artaud space moon thinking You are quite unnecessary, young man! Antonin Artaud unnecessary young men Squander your riches far from this unfeeling body to which no season, either spiritual or sensual, makes any difference. Antonin Artaud differences sensual spiritual With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, and all that follows. Antonin Artaud bombs tyranny language Ah! How neatly tied, in these people, is the umbilical cord of morality! Since they left their mothers they have never sinned, have they? They are apostles, they are the descendants of priests; one can only wonder from what source they draw their indignation, and above all how much they have pocketed to do this, and in any case what it has done for them. Antonin Artaud Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of your bones. Antonin Artaud The race of prophets is extinct. Europe is becoming set in its ways, slowly embalming itself beneath the wrappings of its borders, its factories, its law-courts and its universities. The frozen Mind cracks between the mineral staves which close upon it. The fault lies with your moldy systems, your logic of 2 + 2 = 4. The fault lies with you, Chancellors, caught in the net of syllogisms. You manufacture engineers, magistrates, doctors, who know nothing of the true mysteries of the body or the cosmic laws of existence. False scholars blind outside this world, philosophers who pretend to reconstruct the mind. The least act of spontaneous creation is a more complex and revealing world than any metaphysics. Antonin Artaud You are outside life, you are above life, you have miseries which the ordinary man does not know, you exceed the normal level, and it is for this that men refuse to forgive you, you poison their peace of mind, you undermine their stability. You have irrepressible pains whose essence is to be inadaptable to any known state, indescribable in words. You have repeated and shifting pains, incurable pains, pains beyond imagining, pains which are neither of the body nor of the soul, but which partake of both. And I share your suffering, and I ask you: who dares to ration our relief? We are not going to kill ourselves just yet. In the meantime, leave us the hell alone. Antonin Artaud
