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

  75 Copy quote

• Consider love: is there a nobler outpouring, a rapture less suspect? Its shudders rival music, compete with the tears of solitude and of ecstasy: sublime...but a sublimity inseperable from the urinary tract: transports bordering upon excretion, a heaven of the glands, sudden sancitity of the orifices. It takes no more than a moment of attention for this intoxication, shaken, to cast you back into the ordures of physiology or a moment of fatigue to recognize that so much ardor produces only a variety of mucous.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Love Is, Heaven, Solitude

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

  1 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

  44 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.

  42 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

  54 Copy quote

• You cannot protect your solitude if you cannot make yourself odious.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Solitude, Protect, Ifs

  Emile M. Cioran (1999). “All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms”, p.69, Arcade Publishing

  1 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

  20 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.

  44 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

  42 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

  34 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.

  6 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

  24 Copy quote

• Old age, after all, is merely the punishment for having lived.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Punishment, Age, Old Age

  "Drawn and Quartered". Book by Emil Cioran, 1983.

  6 Copy quote

• Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately, it is within no one's reach.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Life Sucks, Best Laid Plans, Hate Life

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

  20 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

  7 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

  29 Copy quote

• I never met one interesting mind that was not richly endowed with inadmissible deficiencies.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Interesting, Mind, Mets

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

  17 Copy quote

• The need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Needs, Gorillas, Novelty

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

  25 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

  7 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

  61 Copy quote

• Democracy: a festival of mediocrity.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Cynical, Democracy, Mediocrity

  20 Copy quote

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

  Emile M. Cioran

  Meaning Of Life, Facts, Reason

  "Anathemas and Admirations". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1987.

  56 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.

  29 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

  23 Copy quote

• How easy it is to be "deep": all you have to do is let yourself sink into your own flaws.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Self, Flaws, Easy

  Emile M. Cioran (1999). “All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms”, p.7, Arcade Publishing

  22 Copy quote

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