Emil Cioran Quotes
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The moment we believe we've understood everything grants us the look of a murderer.
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Philosophy offers an antidote to melancholy. And many still believe in the depth of philosophy!
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Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.
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The poor maidservant who used to say that she only believed in God when she had a toothache puts all theologians to shame.
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To suffer is the great modality of taking the world seriously.
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Thinking should be like musical meditation. Has any philosopher pursued a thought to its limits the way Bach or Beethoven develop and exhaust a musical theme? Even after having read the most profound thinkers, one still feels the need to begin anew. Only music gives definitive answers.
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It has been a long time since philosophers have read men’s souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.
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Pursued by our origins…we all are.
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I don’t understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn’t it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?
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The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.
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To act is to anchor in the imminent future.
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Saints live in flames; wise men, next to them.
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The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.
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To suffer is to produce knowledge.
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A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It’s not easy to be on the wrong foot with life
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Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.
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There is nothing to say about anything. So there can be no limit to the number of books.
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What can be said, lacks reality. Only what fails to make its way into words exists and counts.
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As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad.
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In the torments of the intellect, there is a certain bearing which is to be sought in vain among those of the heart. Skepticism is the elegance of anxiety.
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The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.
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What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity?
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'Where do you get those superior airs of yours?' 'I've managed to survive, you see, all those nights when I wondered: am I going to kill myself at dawn?'
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We are all secularised anarchists today.