Emile M. Cioran Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Emile M. Cioran

  World, Evidence

  Emile M. Cioran (1975). “A short history of decay”, Viking Books

  68 Copy quote

• The only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster: if we succeed, there are no further surprises, we are superior to whatever occurs, we are invincible victims.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Ideas, Way, Next

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  49 Copy quote

• How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Real, Fall, Thinking

  "On the Heights of Despair". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1934.

  40 Copy quote

• The more one has suffered, the less one demands. To protest is a sign one has traversed no hell.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Demand, Hell, Protest

  "Anathemas and Admirations". Book by Emil Cioran, 1987.

  37 Copy quote

• It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Suicide, Suicidal, Too Late

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  16 Copy quote

• The sole means of protecting your solitude is to offend everyone, beginning with those you love.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Mean, Solitude, Sole

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  18 Copy quote

• Our first intuitions are the true ones.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Intuition, Firsts, True Ones

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  52 Copy quote

• Trees are massacred, houses go up — faces, faces everywhere. Man is spreading. Man is the cancer of the earth.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Cancer, Men, Tree

  31 Copy quote

• What do you do from morning to night?" "I endure myself.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Morning, Night, Endure

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Giving, Flaws, Crime

  0 Copy quote

• Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?

  Emile M. Cioran

  Suicide, Succeed, Reason

  39 Copy quote

• Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Being Yourself, Chaos, Chaos In The World

  Emile M. Cioran (1975). “A short history of decay”, Viking Books

  36 Copy quote

• Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal – less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Wish, Vomiting, Sometimes

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  11 Copy quote

• I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person

  Emile M. Cioran

  Country, Groups, Feels

  10 Copy quote

• When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, "What’s your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act." And they do calm down.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Suicide, People, Want

  "The Trouble With Being Born". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1973.

  3 Copy quote

• As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?

  Emile M. Cioran

  Girl, Philosophical, Fighting

  "On the Heights of Despair". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1934.

  26 Copy quote

• Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it; this world is no less so, since here we regret paradise or anticipate another one. What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Regret, Men, World

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  45 Copy quote

• Only those moments count, when the desire to remain by yourself is so powerful that you'd prefer to blow your brains out than exchange a word with someone.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Powerful, Blow, Brain

  "The New Gods". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1969.

  12 Copy quote

• 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?

  Emile M. Cioran

  Dream, Ambition, Would Be

  "On the Heights of Despair". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1934.

  2 Copy quote

• What I know at sixty, I knew as well at twenty. Forty years of a long, superfluous, labor of verification.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Years, Long, Twenties

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  2 Copy quote

• Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.

  Emile M. Cioran

  People, Life And Death, Overcoming

  "Tears and Saints". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1937.

  34 Copy quote

• However much I have frequented the mystics, deep down I have always sided with the Devil; unable to equal him in power, I have tried to be worthy of him, at least, in insolence, acrimony, arbitrariness and caprice.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Devil, Acrimony, Caprice

  6 Copy quote

• No one recovers from the disease of being born, a deadly wound if there ever was one.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Disease, Reincarnation, Born

  18 Copy quote

• Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Animal, Men, Kingdoms

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

  31 Copy quote

• I am the beast with a contorted grin, contracting down to illusion and dilating toward infinity, both growing and dying, delightfully suspended between hope for nothing and despair of everything, brought up among perfumes and poisons, consumed with love and hatred, killed by lights and shadows. My symbol is death of light and the flame of death. Sparks die in me only to be reborn as thunder and lightning. Darkness itself glows in me.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Light, Flames, Hatred

  24 Copy quote

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