Quotes by Emile M. Cioran

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We define only out of despair, we must have a formula... to give a facade tot he void.

Emile M. Cioran

Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.

Emile M. Cioran

Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty.

Emile M. Cioran

In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary.

Emile M. Cioran

In a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

Emile M. Cioran

The mind is the result of the torments the flesh undergoes or inflicts upon itself.

Emile M. Cioran

We derive our vitality from our store of madness.

Emile M. Cioran

We die in proportion to the words we fling around us.

Emile M. Cioran

When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.

Emile M. Cioran

To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy.

Emile M. Cioran

A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.

Emile M. Cioran

Imaginary pains are by far the most real we suffer, since we feel a constant need for them and invent them because there is no way of doing without them.

Emile M. Cioran

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

Emile M. Cioran

No one recovers from the disease of being born, a deadly wound if there ever was one.

Emile M. Cioran

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Emile M. Cioran

If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.

Emile M. Cioran

Philosophers write for professors; thinkers for writers.

Emile M. Cioran

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

Emile M. Cioran

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.

Emile M. Cioran

What pride to discover that nothing belongs to you - what a revelation.

Emile M. Cioran

The limit of every pain is an even greater pain.

Emile M. Cioran