Emil M. Cioran quotes
Emil M. Cioran
Birthdate: 8. April 1911
Date of death: 20. June 1995
Emil Cioran was a Romanian philosopher and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, and frequently engages with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism. Among his best-known works are On the Heights of Despair and The Trouble with Being Born . Cioran's first French book, A Short History of Decay, was awarded the prestigious Rivarol Prize in 1950. The Latin Quarter of Paris was his permanent residence and he lived much of his life in isolation with his partner Simone Boué. Wikipedia
Works
Quotes Emil M. Cioran
„There is no one whose death I have not longed for, at one moment or another.“
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
„Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.“
— Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born
„Whenever I happen to be in a city of any size, I marvel that riots do not break out everyday: Massacres, unspeakable carnage, a doomsday chaos. How can so many human beings coexist in a space so confined without hating each other to death?“
— Emil M. Cioran, book History and Utopia
History and Utopia (1960)
„We do not rush toward death, we flee the catastrophe of birth, survivors struggling to forget it. Fear of death is merely the projection into the future of a fear which dates back to our first moment of life. We are reluctant, of course, to treat birth as a scourge: has it not been inculcated as the sovereign good — have we not been told that the worst came at the end, not at the outset of our lives? Yet evil, the real evil, is behind, not ahead of us. What escaped Jesus did not escape Buddha: "If three things did not exist in the world, O disciples, the Perfect One would not appear in the world. …" And ahead of old age and death he places the fact of birth, source of every infirmity, every disaster.“
— Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
„Life inspires more dread than death — it is life which is the great unknown.“
— Emil M. Cioran, book A Short History of Decay
A Short History of Decay (1949)
„Why don't I commit suicide? Because I am as sick of death as I am of life.“
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
„It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?“
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
„Say what we will, death is the best thing nature has found to please everyone. With each of us, everything vanishes, everything stops forever. What an advantage, what an abuse! Without the least effort on our part, we own the universe, we drag it into our own disappearance. No doubt about it, dying is immoral…“
— Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
„The terrifying experience and obsession of death, when preserved in consciousness, becomes ruinous. If you talk about death, you save part of yourself. But at the same time, something of your real self dies, because objectified meanings lose the actuality they have in consciousness.“
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
