Emil Cioran (1911 – 1995)
Romanian writer, noted for his somber works in the French language; known in French as Émile Cioran.
The advantage of meditating upon life and death is being able to say anything at all about them.
Noble gestures are always suspect. Each time, we regret having committed them. Something false about them, something theatrical, attitudinizing. It is true that we regret ignoble gestures about as much.
I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them.
Without will, no conflict: no tragedy among the abulic. Yet the failure of will can be experienced more painfully than a tragic destiny.
Lucidity does not extirpate the desire to live - far from it, lucidity merely makes us unsuited to life.
We make choices, decisions, as long as we keep to the surface of things; once we reach the depths, we can neither choose nor decide, we can do nothing but regret the surface...
The state of health is a state of nonsensation, even of nonreality. As soon as we cease to suffer, we cease to exist.
We cannot consent to be judged by someone who has suffered less than ourselves. And since each of us regards himself as an unrecognized Job...
We dread the future only when we are not sure we can kill ourselves when we want to.
Why do you lack the strength to escape the obligation to breathe?
Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.
He detested objective truths, the burden of argument, sustained reasoning. He disliked demonstrating, he wanted to convince no one. Others are a dialectician's invention.
The worst is not ennui nor despair but their encounter, their collision. To be crushed between the two!
To fear is to die every minute.
We always love...despite; and that "despite" covers an infinity.
Nothing is indefensible - from the absurdest proposition to the most monstrous crime.
I'd rather offer my life as a sacrifice than be necessary to anything.
To act is to anchor in the imminent future.
The pangs of truth about ourselves are more than we can endure. How pitiable the man (if such a being exists) who no longer lies to himself!
"What's wrong - what's the matter with you?" Nothing, nothing's the matter, I've merely taken a leap outside my fate, and now I don't know where to turn, what to run for...