Emil M. Cioran

“I infallibly discern a flaw in all those who are interested in the same things as myself. . . .”

— Emil M. Cioran

“The human being delivered to himself, without any partiality for elegance, is a monster.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“If disgust for the world conferred sanctity of itself, I fail to see how I could avoid canonization.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“The unfortunate thing about public misfortunes is that everyone regards himself as qualified to talk about them.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“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

“Stoicism for show: to be an enthusiast of nil admirari, an hysteric of ataraxia.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“There is no limit-disappointment.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“She meant absolutely nothing to me. Realizing, suddenly, after so many years, that whatever happens i shall never see her again, I…

— Emil M. Cioran

“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

“Deep inside, each man feels — and believes — himself to be immortal, even if he knows he will perish the next…

— Emil M. Cioran

“I have never known a single sensation of fulfillment, of true happiness, without thinking that it was the moment when — now…

— Emil M. Cioran

“My soul is chaos, how can it be at all? There is everything in me: search and you will find out ...…

— Emil M. Cioran

“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

“We dismiss the skeptic, we speak of an “automatism of doubt,” while we never say of a believer that he has fallen…

— Emil M. Cioran

“Paradox is not suited to burials, nor to weddings or births, in fact. Sinister — or grotesque — events require commonplaces; the…

— Emil M. Cioran

“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

“Nescience is the basis of everything, it creates everything by an action repeated every moment, it produces this and any world, since…

— Emil M. Cioran

“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

“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

“In a work of psychiatry, only the patients’ remarks interest me; in a work of criticism, only the quotations.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“The right to suppress everyone that bothers us should rank first in the constitution of the ideal State.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“What a bore, someone who doesn’t deign to make an impression. Vain people are almost always annoying, but they make an effort,…

— Emil M. Cioran

“As long as you live on this side of the terrible, you will find words to express it; once you know it…

— Emil M. Cioran

“Every friendship is an inconspicuous drama, a series of subtle wounds.”

— Emil M. Cioran

“When someone tells us of an unfavorable opinion about ourselves, instead of being distressed, we should think of all the “evil” we…

— Emil M. Cioran