“If I followed my natural inclination, I should blow up the world. And it is because I lack the courage to follow… — Emil M. Cioran Courage Copy Share Image
“To be “happy” you must constantly bear in mind the miseries you have escaped. This would be a way for memory to… — Emil M. Cioran Happiness Copy Share Image
“We must side with the oppressed on every occasion, even when they are in the wrong, though without losing sight of the… — Emil M. Cioran Copy Share Image
“When I happen to be busy, I never give a moment’s thought to the “meaning” of anything, particularly of whatever it is… — Emil M. Cioran Consciousness Copy Share Image
“As far back as I can remember, I’ve utterly destroyed within myself the pride of being human. And I saunter to the… — Emil M. Cioran All-gall-is-divided Copy Share Image
“In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity that when you think about it a little more… — Emil M. Cioran Copy Share Image
“I believe speech to be a recent invention, and find it hard to imagine a dialogue that dates back beyond ten thousand… — Emil M. Cioran Communication Copy Share Image
“I am stirred, even overwhelmed each time I happen upon an innocent person. Where does he come from? What is he after?… — Emil M. Cioran Apparition Copy Share Image
“A privilege to live in conflict with one’s times. At every moment one is aware one does not think like the others.… — Emil M. Cioran Every moment Copy Share Image
“A work is finished when we can no longer improve it, though we know it to be inadequate and incomplete. We are… — Emil M. Cioran Copy Share Image
“Ferocity occurs in all conditions save in joy. Schadenfreude, malicious joy, is a misrepresentation. To do evil is a pleasure, not a… — Emil M. Cioran Joy Copy Share Image
“A foretold misfortune, when at last it occurs, is ten, is a hundred times harder to endure than one we did not… — Emil M. Cioran Misfortune Copy Share Image
“The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir… — Emil M. Cioran Belonging Copy Share Image
“Nothing more aggravating than a seamless, unremitting irony which leaves you no time to breathe and still less to think; which instead… — Emil M. Cioran Irony Copy Share Image
“To have opinions is inevitable, is natural; to have convictions is less so. Each time I meet someone who has convictions, I… — Emil M. Cioran Conscience Copy Share Image
“Noble gestures are always suspect. Each time, we regret having committed them. Something false about them, something theatrical, attitudinizing. It is true… — Emil M. Cioran Regret Copy Share Image
“For the victim of anxiety, there is no difference between success and fiasco. His reaction to the one is the same as… — Emil M. Cioran Anxiety Copy Share Image
“What is the point of what we say? Is there any meaning to this series of propositions which constitutes our talk? And… — Emil M. Cioran Copy Share Image
“We forgive only madmen and children for being frank with us: others, if they have the audacity to imitate them, will regret… — Emil M. Cioran Children Copy Share Image
“Children turn, and must turn, against their parents, and the parents can do nothing about it, for they are subject to a… — Emil M. Cioran Children Copy Share Image
“All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression “metaphysical… — Emil M. Cioran Life Copy Share Image
“If only we could return to those ages when no utterance shackled existence, to the laconism of interjections, to the joyous stupor… — Emil M. Cioran All-gall-is-divided Copy Share Image
“My soul is chaos, how can it be at all? There is everything in me: search and you will find out ...… — Emil M. Cioran Chaos Copy Share Image
“With sufficient perspective, nothing is good or bad. The historian who ventures to judge the past is writing journalism in another century.” — Emil M. Cioran Copy Share Image
“If there is so much discomfort and ambiguity in lucidity, it is because lucidity is the result of the poor use to… — Emil M. Cioran Lucidity Copy Share Image
“We invest ourselves with an abusive superiority when we tell someone what we think of him and of what he does. Frankness… — Emil M. Cioran Frankness Copy Share Image
“The satisfaction we take from performing a task (especially when we have no belief in the task and even disdain it) shows… — Emil M. Cioran Disdain Copy Share Image
“You’re against everything that’s been done since the last war,” said the very up-to-date lady. “You’ve got the wrong date: I’m against… — Emil M. Cioran War Copy Share Image
“We pursue whatever we pursue out of torment — a need for torment. Our very quest for salvation is a torment, the… — Emil M. Cioran Suffering Copy Share Image
“When I torment myself a little too much for not working, I tell myself that I might just as well be dead… — Emil M. Cioran Work Copy Share Image
“The problem of responsibility would have a meaning only if we had been consulted before our birth and had consented to be… — Emil M. Cioran Responsibility Copy Share Image
“When we see someone again after many years, we should sit down facing each other and say nothing for hours, so that… — Emil M. Cioran Consternation Copy Share Image
“I shall never utterly admire anyone except a man dishonored — and happy. There is a man, I should say, who defies… — Emil M. Cioran Happiness Copy Share Image
“What are the occupations of the sage? He resigns himself to seeing, to eating, etc…., he accepts in spite of himself this… — Emil M. Cioran All-gall-is-divided Copy Share Image
“My greed for agonies has made me die so many times that it strikes me as indecent to keep on abusing a… — Emil M. Cioran All-gall-is-divided Copy Share Image
“I have never known a single sensation of fulfillment, of true happiness, without thinking that it was the moment when — now… — Emil M. Cioran Happiness Copy Share Image
“When we have committed the folly of confiding a secret to someone, the only way of being sure he will keep it… — Emil M. Cioran Copy Share Image
