Rene Girard Quotes
Rene Girard was a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science best known for his theory of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism. From his early literary readings in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel he argued that desire is always imitative, that we want what others want, and that this triangular structure produces rivalry and conflict. The quotes below are attributed to Rene Girard, organized by topic.
Rene Girard on God
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Attributed to Rene Girard:
“Violence is the heart and secret soul of the sacred.”
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“The God of Christianity isn’t the violent God of archaic religion, but the non-violent God who willingly becomes a victim in order to free us from our violence.”
p. 219
Rene Girard on Justice
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“There is always an attempt to move away from the Cross, that is, to perpetuate man’s misrecognition of his violence and protect his pride from the revelation. Without the Cross, there is no revelation of the fundamental injustice of the scapegoat mechanism, which is the founder of human culture, with all its repercussions in our relationships with each other.”
p. 219 -
“When the father is no longer an overbearing patriarch the son looks everywhere for the law - and finds no lawgiver.”
Wikiquote
Rene Girard on Knowledge
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“Few people want to be saints nowadays, but everybody is trying to lose weight.”
Anorexia and Mimetic Desire (2008), translated by Mark R Anspach (2013), Michigan State University Press. Pg 35 -
“There is no culture without a tomb and no tomb without a culture; in the end the tomb is the first and only cultural symbol. The above-ground tomb does not have to be invented. It is the pile of stones in which the victim of the unanimous stoning is buried. It is the first pyramid.”
p. 83.
Rene Girard on Love
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Attributed to Rene Girard:
“Two desires converging on the same object are bound to clash.”
Rene Girard on Mind
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Attributed to Rene Girard:
“Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others to make up his mind.”
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Attributed to Rene Girard:
“Mimetic desire enables us to escape the animal realm; it is responsible for the best and the worst in us.”
Rene Girard on Politics
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Attributed to Rene Girard:
“The scapegoat mechanism becomes intelligible the moment it ceases to function.”
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“Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoit Chantre (Michigan State University Press, 2009), ch.1, §3.”
The aggressor has always already been attacked. Why are relations of rivalry never seen as symmetrical? Because people always have the impression that the other is the first to attack, that they are never the ones who begin, though in a way they are always the ones. Individualism is a formidable lie. We make others understand that we recognize the signs of aggressiveness which they manifest, and t -
“Anorexia and Mimetic Desire (2008), translated by Mark R Anspach (2013), Michigan State University Press. Pg 35”
Few people want to be saints nowadays, but everybody is trying to lose weight.
Rene Girard on Truth
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“The aggressor has always already been attacked. Why are relations of rivalry never seen as symmetrical? Because people always have the impression that the other is the first to attack, that they are never the ones who begin, though in a way they are always the ones. Individualism is a formidable lie. We make others understand that we recognize the signs of aggressiveness which they manifest, and they in turn interpret our posture as aggression.”
Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoit Chantre (Michigan State University Press, 2009), ch.1, §3.