“I feel effective, competent, likely to do something positive only when I lie down and abandon myself to an interrogation without object or end.”

—  Emil M. Cioran

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

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 "I feel effective, competent, likely to do something positive only when I lie down and abandon myself to an interrogatio…" by Emil M. Cioran?
Emil M. Cioran photo
Emil M. Cioran 531
Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

Related quotes

Max Stirner photo

“I do not presuppose myself, because I am every moment just positing or creating myself, and am I only by being not presupposed but posited, and … only in the moment when I posit myself; that is, I am creator and creature in one.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Ich setze Mich nicht voraus, weil Ich Mich jeden Augenblick überhaupt erst setze oder schaffe, und nur dadurch Ich bin, dass Ich nicht vorausgesetzt, sondern gesetzt bin, und wiederum nur in dem Moment gesetzt, wo ich mich setze, d.h. Ich bin Schöpfer un Geschöpf in Einem.
Cambridge 1995, p. 135
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

“But naturally people fussed and objected like they always do when someone tries to do something positive.”

Jane Rogers book The Testament of Jessie Lamb

Source: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (2011), Chapter 7 (p. 46)

Teal Swan photo

“The worst thing you could ever do to someone from a position of authority is to turn them against themselves. The worst thing you could do is to make them believe that it is wrong to feel how they feel and so something must be wrong with them. It is not malice that makes 'therapists' do this. It is ignorance. But it is ignorance that must end. And I will dedicate myself to ending that ignorance for as long as I draw breath.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher
Carl von Clausewitz photo

“But if the assailant, without troubling himself about the existence of the Army awaiting his attack in a defensive position, advances with his main body by another line in pursuit of his object, then he 'passes by the position,' and if he can do this with impunity, and really does it, he will immediately enforce the abandonment of the position, consequently put an end to its usefulness.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

Source: On War (1832), Book 6, Chapter 1.

Markus Zusak photo

“The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

“Why do I feel like something's missing in my life without them and they don't feel the same about me?”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Cada vez que leo algo que han escrito contra mi, no sólo comparto el sentimiento sino que pienso que yo mismo podría hacer mejor el trabajo, quizá debería aconsejar a los aspirantes a enemigos que me envíen sus criticas de antemano, con la seguridad de que recibirán toda mi ayuda y mi apoyo. Hasta he deseado secretamente escribir con seudónimo, una larga invectiva contra mí mismo.
"Jorge Luis Borges visto por él mismo" http://www.diariomedico.com/entorno/ent271299com.html (Jorge Luis Borges seen by himself) In the case of this work, the Spanish version seems to have been published after the English version.
Autobiographical Notes (1970)
Context: Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself.

William Makepeace Thackeray photo

“This I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without a positive hump, may marry whom she likes.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 4. Compare: "I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of", Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast Table; "The whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women", Bernard Shaw, Epistle Dedicatory to Man and Superman.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Darko Miličić photo

“I kind of feel like Old Darko died. Like, when I think about myself, or myself when I was playing, I feel like I’m sort of thinking about someone who is dead.”

Darko Miličić (1985) Serbian basketball player

As quoted in "Finding Darko" http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/20211833/nba-bust-darko-milicic-finds-success-back-home-serbia (8 February 2017), by Sam Borden, ESPN
2010s

Related topics