Emil M. Cioran: Nothing

“History proves nothing because it contains everything.”

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

“Nothing proves that we are more than nothing.”

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“Whether or not there exists a solution to problems troubles only a minority; that the emotions have no outcome, lead to nothing, vanish into themselves — that is the great unconscious drama, the affective insolubility everyone suffers without even thinking about it.”

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“"What's wrong - what's the matter with you?" Nothing, nothing's the matter, I've merely taken a leap outside my fate, and now I don't know where to turn, what to run for…”

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“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.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“There is nothing to say about anything. So there can be no limit to the number of books.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“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 Trouble With Being Born (1973)

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

Tears and Saints (1937)

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

“I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass — which is better than trying to fill them.”

“Nothing deserves to be undone, doubtless because nothing deserved to be done.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“We make choices, decisions, as long as we keep to the surface of things; once we reach the depths, we can neither choose nor decide, we can do nothing but regret the surface…”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“Creation is in fact a fault, man's famous sin thereby appearing as a minor version of a much graver one. What are we guilty of, except of having followed, more or less slavishly, the Creator's example? Easy to recognize in ourselves the fatality which was His: not for nothing have we issued from the hands of a wicked and woebegone god, a god accursed.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“God is what survives the evidence that nothing deserves to be thought.”

The New Gods (1969)

“We had nothing to say to one another, and while I was manufacturing my phrases I felt that earth was falling through space and that I was falling with it at a speed that made me dizzy.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“To repeat to yourself a thousand times a day: 'Nothing on Earth has any worth,' to keep finding yourself at the same point, to circle stupidly as a top, eternally…”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“The only thing the young should be taught is that there is virtually nothing to be hoped for from life. One dreams of a Catalogue of Disappointments which would include all the disillusionments reserved for each and every one of us, to be posted in the schools.”

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

“Nothing surpasses the pleasures of idleness: even if the end of the world were to come, I would not leave my bed at an ungodly hour.”

“The initial revelation of any monastery: everything is nothing. Thus begin all mysticisms. It is less than one step from nothing to God, for God is the positive expression of nothingness.”

A Short History of Decay (1949)