Emil Cioran

“Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.”

“Knowledge subverts love: in proportion as we penetrate our secrets, we come to loathe our kind, precisely because they resemble us.”

“Nu pot fi eu insumi decat daca ma inalt pana la furie sau cobor pana la descurajare: la nivelul meu obisnuit, ignor faptul ca exist.”

“As long as one believes in philosophy, one is healthy; sickness begins when one starts to think.”

“To live in any true sense of the word is to reject others; to accept them, one must be able to renounce, to do oneself violence, to act against one's own nature, to weaken oneself; we concei...”

“In numele si sub teroarea ei (plictiselii, n.m.) parasesc oamenii caminul si moartea agreabila legata de el si se avanta in lume, spre a muri undeva fara acoperis si fara lacrimi; adolescent...”

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live-moreover, the only one.”

“Tristetea, ca si suferinta, ne revela existenta, deoarece în ele avem în constiinta separatia noastra de lumea obiectiva si nelinistea care da un caracter tragic vietuirii în existenta. Daca...”

“As long as there a single god standing, mankind's work isn't finished.”

“As long as there is a single god standing, mankind's work will not be finished.”

“Think of God and not religion, of ecstasy and not mysticism. The difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.”

“I hate wise men because they are lazy, cowardly, and prudent. To the philosophers' equanimity, which makes them indifferent to both pleasure and pain, I prefer devouring passions. The sage k...”

“Il ne fait aucun doute pour moi que la sagesse est le but principal de la vie et c'est pourquoi je reviens toujours aux stoïciens. Ils ont atteint la sagesse, on ne peut donc plus les appele...”

“It is no sign of benediction to have been obsessed with the lives of saints, for it is an obsession intertwined with a taste for maladies and hunger for depravities. One only troubles onesel...”

“Between Ennui and Ecstasy unwinds our whole experience of time.”

“Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious.”

“To exist is a habit I do not despair of acquiring.”

“Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.”

“A people represents not so much an aggregate of ideas and theories as of obsessions.”

“To act is to anchor in an imminent future, so imminent it becomes almost tangible; to act is to feel you are consubstantial with that future.”