Emil Cioran Quotes
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Only thoughts that are randomly born die. The other thoughts we carry with us without knowing them. They have abandoned themselves to forgetfulness so that they can be with us all the time.
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To be or not to be...Neither one nor the other.
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Philosophy offers an antidote to melancholy. And many still believe in the depth of philosophy!
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To suffer is the great modality of taking the world seriously.
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I find in myself as much evil as in anyone, but detesting action - mother of all vices - I am the cause of no one's suffering.
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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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We are all secularised anarchists today.
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As long as I live I shall not allow myself to forget that I shall die; I am waiting for death so that I can forget about it.
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Pursued by our origins…we all are.
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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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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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A self-respecting man is a man without a country. A fatherland is birdlime...
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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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What pride to discover that nothing belongs to you - what a revelation.
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Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.
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Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil.
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Saints live in flames; wise men, next to them.
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The only profound thinkers are the ones who do not suffer from a sense of the ridiculous.
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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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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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Only what we have not accomplished and what we could not accomplish matters to us, so that what remains of a whole life is only what it will not have been.
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What is that one crucifixion compared to the daily kind any insomniac endures?