Emil Cioran

“Life creates itself in delirium and is undone in ennui.”

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

“We derive our vitality from our store of madness.”

“Our works, whatever they may be, derive from our incapacity to kill or to kill ourselves.”

“Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation.”

“Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessors.”

“Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.”

“The more we try to rest ourselves from our Egos, the deeper we sink into it.”

“Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.”

“We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.”

“Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to overcome it, adapt it to our needs; once acquired it can imprison us.”

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

“The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster.”

“One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.”

“Impossible to spend sleepless nights and accomplish anything: if, in my youth, my parents had not financed my insomnias, I should surely have killed myself.”

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

“So long as man is protected by madness - he functions - and flourishes.”

“Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers.”

“I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.”

“We understand God by everything in ourselves that is fragmentary, incomplete, and inopportune.”