Emil M. Cioran: Quotes about life

Emil M. Cioran was Romanian philosopher and essayist. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Emil M. Cioran: 1062 quotes389 likes

“It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?”

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

“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.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“Incredible that the prospect of having a biographer has made no one renounce having a life.”

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“For a long time — always, in fact — I have known that life here on earth is not what I needed and that I wasn't able to deal with it; for this reason and for this reason alone, I have acquired a touch of spiritual pride, so that my existence seems to me the degradation and the erosion of a psalm.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“There are no arguments. Can anyone who has reached the limit bother with arguments, causes, effects, moral considerations, and so forth? Of course not. For such a person there are only unmotivated motives for living. On the heights of despair, the passion for the absurd is the only thing that can still throw a demonic light on chaos. When all the current reasons — moral, esthetic, religious, social, and so on — no longer guide one's life, how can one sustain life without succumbing to nothingness? Only by a connection with the absurd, by love of absolute uselessness, loving something which does not have substance but which simulates an illusion of life. I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing.”

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

“If someone incessantly drops the word "life," you know he's a sick man.”

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“In relation to any act of life, the mind acts as a killjoy.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“Love of the absolute engenders a predilection for self-destruction. Hence the passion for monasteries and brothels. Cells and women, in both cases. Weariness with life fares well in the shadow of whores and saintly women.”

Tears and Saints (1937)

“Why don't I commit suicide? Because I am as sick of death as I am of life.”

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

“Maybe suffering has no more justification than life.”

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

“At the edge of life you feel that you are no longer master of the life within you, that subjectivity is an illusion, and that uncontrollable forces are seething inside you, evolving with no relation to a personal center or a definite, individual rhythm.”

On the Heights of Despair (1934), essay 2 - On not wanting to live