Emil M. Cioran: Trending quotes

“All philosophers should end their days at Pythia's feet. There is only one philosophy, that of unique moments.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“Not one moment when I have not been conscious of being outside Paradise.”

The Book of Delusions (1936)

“Out of the shadow of the abstract man, who thinks for the pleasure of thinking, emerges the organic man, who thinks because of a vital imbalance, and who is beyond science and art.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“As soon as one returns to Doubt (if it could be said that one has ever left it), undertaking anything at all seems not so much useless as extravagant. Doubt works deep within you like a disease, or even more effectively, like a faith.”

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

“To win the guilty kiss of a saint, I'd welcome the plague as a blessing”

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

“One of the greatest delusions of the average man is to forget that life is death's prisoner.”

Tears and Saints (1937)

“Why don't I kill myself? If I knew exactly what keeps me from doing so, I should have no more questions to ask myself since I should have answered them all.”

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

“Someday the old shack we call the world will fall apart. How, we don't know, and we don't really care either. Since nothing has real substance, and life is a twirl in the void, its beginning and its end are meaningless.”

The New Gods (1969)

“What pride to discover that nothing belongs to you — what a revelation.”

Tears and Saints (1937)

“Endless brooding over a question undermines you as much as a dull pain.”

History and Utopia (1960)

“Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism.”

The New Gods (1969)

“In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.”

History and Utopia (1960)

“Irons and the unbreathable air of this world strip us of everything, except the freedom to kill ourselves; and this freedom grants us a strength and pride to triumph over the loads which overwhelm us.”

History and Utopia (1960)

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“The state of health is a state of nonsensation, even of nonreality. As soon as we cease to suffer, we cease to exist.”

“To fear is to die every minute.”

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

“Obviously God was a solution, and obviously none so satisfactory that will ever be found again.”

Tears and Saints (1937)

“Pursued by our origins…we all are.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“Tyranny is just what one can develop a taste for, since it so happens that man prefers to wallow in fear rather than to face the anguish of being himself.”

History and Utopia (1960)

“I have all the defects of other people yet everything they do seems to me inconceivable.”

History and Utopia (1960)