Quotes by Emil M. Cioran

“Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.”

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one.”

“Fear of death is merely the projection into the future of a fear which dates back to our first moment of life.”

“A zoologist who observed gorillas in their native habitat was amazed by the uniformity of their life and their vast idleness. Hours and hours without doing anything. Was boredom unknown to them? Th...”

“By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.”

“Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact.”

“There are people who are destined to taste only the poison in things, for whom any surprise is a painful surprise and any experience a new occasion for torture. if someone were to say to me that su...”

“Knowledge subverts love: in proportion as we penetrate our secrets, we come to loathe our kind, precisely because they resemble us.”

“To live entirely without a goal! I have glimpsed this state, and have often attained it, without managing to remain there: I am too weak for such happiness.”

“Nu pot fi eu insumi decat daca ma inalt pana la furie sau cobor pana la descurajare: la nivelul meu obisnuit, ignor faptul ca exist.”

“I try--without success--to stop finding reasons for vanity in anything. When I happen to manage it nonetheless, I feel that I no longer belong to the mortal gang. I am above everything then, above ...”

“As long as one believes in philosophy, one is healthy; sickness begins when one starts to think.”

“Nothing sweeter than to drag oneself along behind events; and nothing more reasonable. But without a strong dose of madness, no initiative, no enterprise, no gesture. Reason: the rust of our vitali...”

“The only successful philosophies and religions are the ones that flatter us, whether in the name of progress or of hell. Damned or not, man experiences an absolute need to be at the heart of everyt...”

“To live in any true sense of the word is to reject others; to accept them, one must be able to renounce, to do oneself violence, to act against one's own nature, to weaken oneself; we conceive free...”

“In numele si sub teroarea ei (plictiselii, n.m.) parasesc oamenii caminul si moartea agreabila legata de el si se avanta in lume, spre a muri undeva fara acoperis si fara lacrimi; adolescentii se g...”

“Tristetea, ca si suferinta, ne revela existenta, deoarece n ele avem n constiinta separatia noastra de lumea obiectiva si nelinistea care da un caracter tragic vietuirii n existenta.Daca ar exista ...”

“If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.”

“Think of God and not religion, of ecstasy and not mysticism. The difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.”

“I hate wise men because they are lazy, cowardly, and prudent. To the philosophers' equanimity, which makes them indifferent to both pleasure and pain, I prefer devouring passions. The sage knows ne...”