The fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for Truth. — Emile M. Cioran Adventure Copy Share Image
Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty. — Emile M. Cioran Abuse Copy Share Image
Jealousy - that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion. — Emile M. Cioran Aversion Copy Share Image
In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
Tyrants are always assassinated too late. That is their great excuse. — Emile M. Cioran Democracy Copy Share Image
A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb. — Emile M. Cioran Democracy Copy Share Image
Philosophers write for professors; thinkers for writers. — Emile M. Cioran Philosopher Copy Share Image
Were we to undertake an exhaustive self-scrutiny, disgust would paralyze us, we would be doomed to a thankless existence. — Emile M. Cioran Disgust Copy Share Image
The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
To act is to anchor in an imminent future, so imminent it becomes almost tangible; to act is to feel you are… — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
To write books is to have a certain relation with original sin. For what is a book if not a loss of… — Emile M. Cioran Aggression Copy Share Image
Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious. — Emile M. Cioran Concession Copy Share Image
Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
All that shimmers on the surface of the world, all that we call interesting, is the fruit of ignorance and inebriation. — Emile M. Cioran Fruit Copy Share Image
Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately, it is within no one's reach. — Emile M. Cioran Best laid plans Copy Share Image
What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity? — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
Our works, whatever they may be, derive from our incapacity to kill or to kill ourselves. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
Utopia is a mixture of childish rationalism and secularized angelism. — Emile M. Cioran Inspirational Copy Share Image
You cannot protect your solitude if you cannot make yourself odious. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
The amount of chiaroscuro an idea harbors is the only index of its profundity. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing - between two fictions. — Emile M. Cioran Fiction Copy Share Image
Old age, after all, is merely the punishment for having lived. — Emile M. Cioran Age Copy Share Image
Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fueled by a quotation. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
I have no nationality - the best possible status for an intellectual. — Emile M. Cioran Intellectual Copy Share Image
Vague a l'ame — melancholy yearning for the end of the world. — Emile M. Cioran Desire Copy Share Image
Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom? — Emile M. Cioran Boredom Copy Share Image
To defy heredity is to defy billions of years, to defy the first cell — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
By virtue of depression, we recall those misdeeds we buried in the depths of our memory. Depression exhumes our shames. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
Even when nothing happens, everything seems too much for me. What can be said, then, in the presence of an event, any… — Emile M. Cioran Events Copy Share Image
Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual; freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more chances of… — Emile M. Cioran Chance Copy Share Image
What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots. — Emile M. Cioran Country Copy Share Image
Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no… — Emile M. Cioran Absence Copy Share Image
It is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. The man who does not consent to lie will see… — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
When you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to… — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion. — Emile M. Cioran Copy Share Image
What necessity impels a writer who has produced fifty books to write still one more? Why this proliferation, this fear of being… — Emile M. Cioran Book Copy Share Image
That history just unfolds, independently of a specified direction, of a goal, no one is willing to admit. — Emile M. Cioran Goal Copy Share Image
Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves. — Emile M. Cioran Books Copy Share Image
