Quotes from Emil Cioran

Tot ce este formulat, este ca intensitate degradat.

The mystics and their "collected works." When one addresses oneself to God, and to God alone, as they claim to do, one should be careful not to write. God doesn't read. . . .

Of all that was attempted this side of nothingness, is anything more pathetic than this world, except for the idea which conceived it?

Dac? ar exista un acces direct la bucuria mistic?, la jubilarea în Divinitate - f?r? a fi silit s? parcurgi drumul spinos al experienÈ›ei întregi È™i toate antecedentele chinuitoare ale extazului -, atunci soluÈ›ia terestr? a fericirii ar fi la îndemâna oricui. Cum un astfel de acces nu exist?, suntem condamnaÈ›i a urca o scar?, f?r? a-i atinge vreodat? ultima treapt?.

Niciodat? n-am vrut s? tr?iesc f?r? s? vreau s? mor. Mai încleÅŸtat în ce sunt : în via?? sau în moarte?

An den Verheißungen der Utopie scheint alles bewundernswert und ist alles falsch; an den Feststellungen der Reaktionäre ist alles verabscheuenswert und scheint alles wahr.

DecepÅ£iile repetate presupun ambiÅ£ii inumane. Oamenii cu adev?rat triÅŸti sunt aceia care, neputând r?sturna totul, s-au acceptat ca ruin? a idealului lor.

Tristetea nu are niciun caracter estetic caracter ce nu lipseste decat uneori melancoliei.

Când n-ai m?sur? în nimic, te m?sori cu Dumnezeu. Orice exces ni-l apropie. C?ci El nu-i decât incapacitatea noastr? de a ne opri undeva. Tot ce n-are margine - iubirea, furia, nebunia, ura - e de esen?? religioas?.

Heroes abound at the dawn of civilizations, during pre-Homeric and Gothic epochs, when people, not having yet experienced spiritual torture, satisfy their thirst for renunciation through a derivative: heroism.

Sa petreci o seara intreaga langa un om care traieste in minciuna,care e un gunoi dar nu stie (sau nu crede) ca este,o asemenea seara iti lasa un dezgust care a doua zi te bantuie si-ti strica ziua.

Excesul de subiectivism, la oamenii care n-au ajuns la credinta, nu poate duce decat la megalomanie sau autodenigrare. Cand te preocupi mult de tine insuti, nu poti ajunge decat sa te iubesti sau sa te urasti dincolo de orice masura. In amandoua felurile te lichidezi inainte de vreme. Nu e subiectivism acela ce nu te face Dumnezeu sau Satana.

C'est d'un type spécial de veilles que dérive la mise en cause de la naissance

Entuziasmul depaseste acest principiu realizand viata fara dramatism exprimand un elan fara tragism si iubind fara sexualitate.

The man too lucid to worship will also be too lucid to wreck, or will wreck only his … rebellions; for what is the use of rebelling only to discover, afterwards, a universe intact? A paltry monologue.

Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.

At best, we conceive happiness; never felicity, prerogative of civilizations based on the idea of salvation, on the refusal to savor one's sufferings, to revel in them; but, sybarites of suffering, scions of a masochistic tradition, which of us would hesitate between the Benares sermon and Baudelaire's Heautontimoroumenos? I am both wound and knife"—that is our absolute, our eternity.

If we could understand and love the infinity of agonies which languish around us, all the lives which are hidden deaths, we should require as many hearts as there are suffering beings.

El arte de amar ? Saber unir el temperamento de un vampiro y la discreción de una anémona.

Trei diminea?a. Simt secunda de fa??, apoi pe cealalt?, fac bilan?ul fiec?rui minut. De ce toate astea? Pentru c? m-am n?scut.

Cînd m? gîndesc c? voi împlini 35 de ani în cîteva luni, m? apuc? disperarea; îmb?trînim cu toÅ£ii iremediabil ÅŸi f?r? sc?pare.

S? te r?zvr?teÅŸti împotriva eredit??ii înseamn? s? te r?zvr?teÅŸti împotriva a miliarde de ani, împotriva primeicelule.

Lord, give me the capacity of never praying, spare me the insanity of all worship, let this temptation of love pass from me which would deliver me forever unto You. Let the void spread between my heart and heaven! I have no desire to people my deserts by Your presence, to tyrannize my nights by Your light, to dissolve my Siberias beneath Your sun.

The terrifying experience and obsession of death, when preserved in consciousness, becomes ruinous. If you talk about death, you save part of yourself. But at the same time, something of your real self dies, because objectified meanings lose the actuality they have in consciousness.