Emil Cioran

Between Ennui and Ecstasy unwinds our whole experience of time.

— Emil Cioran

What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name - and moving on.

— Emil Cioran

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.

— Emil Cioran

Criticism is a misconception.

— Emil Cioran

As incompetent in life as in death, I loathe myself and in this loathing I dream of another life, another death. And for having sought to be a sage such as never was, I am only a madman among the mad . . .

— Emil Cioran

We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.

— Emil Cioran

No one should forget: Eros alone can fulfill life; knowledge, never. Only Eros makes sense; knowledge is empty infinity; — for thoughts, there is always time; life has its time; there is no thought that comes too late; any desire can become a regret.

— Emil Cioran

Doutbless, revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim, or else we are tangled in the subtleties of remorse; so vengeance too has its venom, though it comes closer to what we are, to what we feel, to the very law of the self; it is also healthier than magnanimity. The Furies were held to antedate the gods, Zeus included. Vengeance before Divinity! This is the Major intuition of ancient mythology.

— Emil Cioran

We are all secularised anarchists today.

— Emil Cioran

Love, a tacit agreement between two unhappy parties to overestimate each other.

— Emil Cioran

He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama.

— Emil Cioran

Each of us believes, quite unconsciously of course, that we alone pursue the truth, which the rest are incapable of seeking out and unworthy of attaining. This madness is so deep-rooted and so useful that it is impossible to realize what would become of each of us if it were someday to disappear.

— Emil Cioran

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.

— Emil Cioran

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; adolescentii se gandesc la sinucideri in zile infinite de primavara, iar servitoarele fara amanti se lamenteaza duminicile, de parca inima lor e un cimitir in care mortii nu pot dormi.

— Emil Cioran

Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing — between two fictions.

— Emil Cioran

Jealousy - that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion.

— Emil Cioran

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.

— Emil Cioran

The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.

— Emil Cioran

Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me.

— Emil Cioran

To Live signifies to believe and hope - to lie and to lie to oneself.

— Emil Cioran

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.

— Emil Cioran

Time is heavy sometimes; imagine how heavy eternity must be.

— Emil Cioran