Emil Cioran Browse All Authors Top 31 quotes by Emil Cioran Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves. Emil Cioran Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment. Emil Cioran Much more than our other needs and endeavors, it is sexuality that puts us on an even footing with our kind: the more we practice it, the more we become like everyone else: it is in the performance of a reputedly bestial function that we prove our status as citizens: nothing is more public than the sexual act. Emil Cioran Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off. Emil Cioran Only one endowed with restless vitality is susceptible to pessimism. You become a pessimist --a demonic, elemental, bestial pessimist --only when life has been defeated many times in its fight against depression. Emil Cioran There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be. Emil Cioran Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual; freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more chances of saving himself by hell than by paradise. Emil Cioran We derive our vitality from our store of madness. Emil Cioran What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his? Emil Cioran The Universal view melts things into a blur. Emil Cioran view things blur universal Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim. Emil Cioran feel always revenge sweet Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself. Emil Cioran yourself being you chaos Since all life is futility, then the decision to exist must be the most irrational of all. Emil Cioran exist must decision life My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers. Emil Cioran turn mission me time You are done for - a living dead man - not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life. Emil Cioran you man mystery life We understand God by everything in ourselves that is fragmentary, incomplete, and inopportune. Emil Cioran everything understand incomplete god Everything is pathology, except for indifference. Emil Cioran except everything indifference Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart. Emil Cioran apart echo us time Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious. Emil Cioran inner which make conscious For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion. Emil Cioran everything you illusion freedom
