Emil Cioran Quotes
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It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?
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Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.
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'I am like a broken puppet whose eyes have fallen inside.' This remark of a mental patient weighs more heavily than a whole stack of works on introspection.
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Even when nothing happens, everything seems too much for me. What can be said, then, in the presence of an event, any event?
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The only minds which seduce us are the minds which have destroyed themselves trying to give their life a meaning.
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To found a family. I think it would have been easier for me to found an empire.
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Espousing the melancholy of ancient symbols, I would have freed myself.
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If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.
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The true hero fights and dies in the name of his destiny, and not in the name of a belief.
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To live in a saint's heart? I'm afraid of setting the sky ablaze.
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I saw that philosophy had no power to make my life more bearable. Thus I lost my belief in philosophy.
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Everyone is mistaken, everyone lives in illusion. At best, we can admit a scale of fictions, a hierarchy of unrealities, giving preference to one rather than to another; but to choose, no, definitely not that...
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What a judgment upon the living, if it is true, as has been maintained, that what dies has never existed!
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Transmitting one's flaws through procreation to someone else is a crime. I could never consent to give life to someone who would inherent my ailments.
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Having destroyed all my connections, burned my bridges, I should feel a certain freedom, and in fact I do. One so intense I am afraid to rejoice in it.
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A man does not kill himself, as is commonly supposed, in a fit of madness but rather in a fit of unendurable lucidity, in a paroxysm which may, if so desired, be identified with madness; for an excessive perspicacity, carried to the limit and of which one longs to be rid at all costs, exceeds the context of reason.
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If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.
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When we know what words are worth, the amazing thing is that we try to say anything at all, and that we manage to do so. This requires, it is true, a supernatural nerve.
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Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an impostor.
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Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. We kill only in the name of a god or of his counterfeits: the excesses provoked by the goddess Reason, by the concept of nation, class, or race are akin to those of the Inquisition or of the Reformation.
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Reality is a creation of our excesses.
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I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person.
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Love of the absolute engenders a predilection for self-destruction. Hence the passion for monasteries and brothels. Cells and women, in both cases. Weariness with life fares well in the shadow of whores and saintly women.
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Everyone must destroy their life. According to the way they do it, they're either triumphants or failures.