“Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.”

— Emil M. Cioran, book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 22, 2020. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls." by Emil M. Cioran?

Emil M. Cioran photo

Emil M. Cioran531

Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

Related quotes

“Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily…”

Wilhelm Reich book Listen, Little Man!

Listen, Little Man! (1948)

“…pornography is the orchestrated destruction of women's bodies and souls; rape, battery, incest, and prostitution animate it; dehumanization and sadism characterize it; it is war on women, serial assaults on dignity, identity, and human worth; it is tyranny. Each woman who has survived knows from the experience of her own life that pornography is captivity–the woman trapped in the picture used on the woman trapped wherever he's got her.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Introduction http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/PornIntro2.html, p xxvii. <br class="br">Pornography, Men Possessing Women (1979)

“A hot topic of late, expressed most notably in Bernie Siegel's best-selling books, has emphasized the role of positive attitude in combating such serious diseases as cancer. From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Source: Full House (1996), p. 47

“We can and must deter terror; we can and must conduct surveillance; we can and must find terror cells and plotters; and we need to fight them aggressively in the battlefield abroad and prosecute them carefully under the law if they are citizens at home. But the zeal and arrogance of Bush and Cheney have done this at the expense of the heart and soul of Western jurisprudence and constitutional liberty. They must not get away with it. Our inheritance is too precious to squander in a fit of panic, sadism and hubris.”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"Horton on Padilla" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/08/horton-on-padil.html#more, The Daily Dish (20 August 2007)

“A soul of water a soul of stone.
A soul by name a soul unknown.
The hours unmake our flesh our bone.
The Soul is all and all alone!”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

“But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no colour or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can't be stilled.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

“As the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul. And this death of the soul is the true death.”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Source: To the Most Reverend Nun Xenia (c. 1344), p. 296

“I had, at that moment, another soul – an almost divine soul, a creative and sacrificial soul.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

“To be honest, to be kind — to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation — above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself — here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to be successful. There is indeed one element in human destiny that not blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Across the Plains

Source: Across the Plains (1892), Ch. XII, A Christmas Sermon.

“Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

The Moon, Act IV, l. 451
Variant: Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.
Source: Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Related topics

Soul