Emile M. Cioran Quotes - Page 7

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• History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable.

  Emile M. Cioran

  History, Mind, Degradation

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

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• By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing; but instead of nonchalantly promenading our own corruption, we exude our sweat and grow winded upon the fetid air.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Crazy, Air, Sweat

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• 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.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Goal, Weak, States

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• In most cases we attach ourselves to in order to take revenge on life, to punish it, to signify we can do without it, that we have found something better, and we also attach ourselves to God in horror of men.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Revenge, Men, Order

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• We would not be interested in human beings if we did not have the hope of someday meeting someone worse off than ourselves.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Meeting Someone, Someday, Meetings

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• Every word affords me pain. Yet how sweet it would be if I could hear what the flowers have to say about death!

  Emile M. Cioran

  Death, Sweet, Pain

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

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• We are born to exist, not to know, to be, not to assert ourselves.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Born, Existence, Knows

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

  8 Copy quote

• We derive our vitality from our store of madness.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Vitality, Madness, Stores

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• The only free mind is one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Mind, Plies, Intimacy

  "The Temptation to Exist". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1956.

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• All that shimmers on the surface of the world, all that we call interesting, is the fruit of ignorance and inebriation.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Ignorance, Interesting, World

  Emile M. Cioran (1970). “The fall into time”, Crown

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• The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Ghost, Mask, Curtains

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• 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 freedom only for ourselves - we extend it to our neighbours only at the cost of exhausting efforts; whence the precariousness of liberalism, a defiance of our instincts, a brief and miraculous success, a state of exception, at the antipodes of our deepest imperatives.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Effort, Cost, Able

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• The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Borders, Kind, Misanthropy

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity?

  Emile M. Cioran

  Time, Men, Doe

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Forgiving, World, Betrayed

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

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• A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Enemy, Gates

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• I don’t understand how people can believe in God, even when I myself think of him everyday.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Believe, Thinking, People

  "The Book of Delusions". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1936.

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• No position is so false as having understood and still remaining alive.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Alive, Understood, Position

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

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• When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Forever, Needs, Miserable

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

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• To read is to let someone else work for you - the most delicate form of exploitation.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Form, Delicate, Exploitation

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

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• True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Fire, Tears, Ashes

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

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• As the years pass, the number of those we can communicate with diminishes. When there is no longer anyone to talk to, at last we will be as we were before stooping to a name.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Years, Names, Numbers

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

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• Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart's drama and the negative meaning of history.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Drama, Heart, Age

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

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• Wherever we go, we come up against the human, a repulsive ubiquity before which we fall into stupor and revolt, a perplexity on fire.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Fall, Ubiquity, Fire

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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.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Lying, Character, Answers

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

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