Emil Cioran Quotes
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My mission is to see things as they are. Exactly the contrary of a mission.
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This morning I thought, hence lost my bearings, for a good quarter of an hour.
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What pride to discover that nothing belongs to you - what a revelation.
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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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If I were to go blind, what would bother me the most would be no longer to be able to stare idiotically at the passing clouds.
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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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To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy.
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In our fear, we are victims of an aggression of the Future.
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A self-respecting man is a man without a country. A fatherland is birdlime...
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The state of health is a state of nonsensation, even of nonreality. As soon as we cease to suffer, we cease to exist.
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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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No one should forget: Eros alone can fulfill life; knowledge, never. Only Eros makes sense; knowledge is empty infinity;––for thoughts, there is always time; life has its time; there is no thought that comes too late; any desire can become a regret.
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Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers.
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We are all secularised anarchists today.
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Philosophy offers an antidote to melancholy. And many still believe in the depth of philosophy!
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To act is to anchor in the imminent future.
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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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Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?
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Saints live in flames; wise men, next to them.
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To suffer is to produce knowledge.
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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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Glory - once achieved, what is it worth?
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The only subversive mind is the one that questions the obligation to exist; all the others, the anarchist at the top of the list, compromise with the established order.
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The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.