“All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression "metaphysical exile" had no meaning, my existence alone would afford it one.”

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression "metaphysical ex…" by Emil M. Cioran?
Emil M. Cioran photo
Emil M. Cioran 531
Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

Related quotes

Thao Nguyen photo

“The album was the creation of a space where all of the different lives I’ve led. My life has been really divided and this was a place where I could finally gather them all up and they would be in one place. So that my professional life and personal life exist together.”

Thao Nguyen (1984) American singer-songwriter

On the message of her music album Temple in "DIVA chats to Thao Nguyen all about her new record, coming out to the world and Zoom music video magic" in Diva (29 May 2020) https://divamag.co.uk/2020/05/29/music-an-interview-with-thao-nguyen/

Richard Wright photo
Yukio Mishima photo

“All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence.”

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) Japanese author

As quoted in Mishima : A Life in Four Chapters (1985).
Context: All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence. For forty-five years I struggled to resolve this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So I found another form of expression.

Oliver Cromwell photo

“I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertook such a Government as this is.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Statement to Parliament (4 February 1658) quoted in The Diary of Thomas Burton, esq., volume 2: April 1657 - February 1658 (1828), p. 466

“All my life, I thought I was a Conservative. Now I know that I have never been one. The scales have dropped from my eyes.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Obituary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-joseph-1387217.html, The Independent, Monday 12 December 1994.
1990s

Abraham Pais photo

“If those papers had been in my pocket I would have never lived to be seventy. I have led a strange life, a set of complete coincidences.”

Abraham Pais (1918–2000) American Physicist

On the fate of his friend Lion Nordheim, who was executed ten days before the end of the war, and his own release at around the same time, p. 52
To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue (2000)
Context: On the day we were caught, Lion and I had been talking about writing a memorandum on the fate of the Jewish war children living in hiding or among Dutch families … we were the representatives of the Zionist youth organization. … Lion who had been taking notes of the discussion, put these papers in his jacket pocket when he took a break from lunch. When the Germans caught us they discovered his notes. If those papers had been in my pocket I would have never lived to be seventy. I have led a strange life, a set of complete coincidences.

Charles Kingsley photo

“I have fought my fight, I have lived my life,
I have drunk my share of wine;
From Trier to Köln there was never a knight
Had a merrier life than mine.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Quoted in Albert Jay Nock's Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 54.
Attributed

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Psyche
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956)
Context: The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.

Geoff Dyer photo

“I had to be on my own, just so that I would not feel as alone.”

Geoff Dyer (1958) English writer

Source: Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (1993), p. 201

Related topics