Emile M. Cioran
Emile M. Cioran
NationalityRomanian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth8 April 1911
CountryRomania
mind plies intimacy
The only free mind is one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity.
passion reality men
Ideas should be neutral. But man animates them with his passions and folly. Impure and turned into beliefs, they take on the appearance of reality. The passage from logic is consummated. Thus are born ideologies, doctrines, and bloody farce.
life-and-death people overcoming
Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.
intuition firsts true-ones
Our first intuitions are the true ones.
history mind degradation
History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable.
void infinite throwing
How good would it be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void.
suicide succeed reason
Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?
people normal forget
Normal people have nothing to forget.
soul sadism skepticism
Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.
being-yourself chaos chaos-in-the-world
Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself.
ideas way next
The only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster: if we succeed, there are no further surprises, we are superior to whatever occurs, we are invincible victims.
philosophy believe sadness
Philosophy is a corrective against sadness. Yet there still are people who believe in the profundity of philosophy!
motive left
One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.
gorillas novelty needs
The need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.