Emil Cioran Quotes

1911–1995 France

Emil Cioran (8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher and essayist whose work is known for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, which frequently engages with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism.

France
Academics
Educators
Essayists
Philosophers

Also known as: Cioran, Cioran, Emile, E. M. Cioran, Emile Cioran

Random Emil Cioran quote

487 quotes

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

To win the guilty kiss of a saint, I'd welcome the plague as a blessing

Tears and Saints (1937)

We always love . . . despite; and that "despite" covers an infinity.

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

If I used to ask myself, over a coffin, "what good did it do the occupant to be born?" I now put the same question about anyone alive.

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

One disgust, then another — to the point of losing the use of speech and even of the mind...The greatest exploit of my life is to be still alive.

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

No one has the audacity to exclaim: "I don't want to do anything!" — we are more indulgent with a murderer than with a mind emancipated from actions.

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Try as I will, I don't see what might exist...

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Only what we have not accomplished and what we could not accomplish matters to us, so that what remains of a whole life is only what it will not have been.

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

To hope is to contradict the future.

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Hope is the normal form of delirium.

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Two enemies — the same man divided.

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

To suffer is to produce knowledge.

The New Gods (1969)

I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy, whose essential endeavor is to surmount the self; and everything I do, everything I think is only myself and the selfs humiliations.

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

It is unjust to call imaginary the diseases which are, on the contrary, only too real, since they proceed from our mind, the only regulator of our equilibrium and our health.

The New Gods (1969)

Only thoughts that are randomly born die. The other thoughts we carry with us without knowing them. They have abandoned themselves to forgetfulness so that they can be with us all the time.

The Book of Delusions (1936)

That faint light in each of us which dates back to before our birth, to before all births, is what must be protected if we want to rejoin that remote glory from which we shall never know why we were separated.

Not content with real sufferings, the anxious man imposes imaginary ones on himself; he is a being for whom unreality exists, must exist; otherwise where would he obtain the ration of torment his nature demands?

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

If it is true that by death we once more become what we were before being, would it not have been better to abide by that pure possibility, not to stir from it? What use was this detour, when we might have remained forever in an unrealized plenitude?

If I were to go blind, what would bother me the most would be no longer to be able to stare idiotically at the passing clouds.

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

We replace God as best we can; for every god is good, provided he perpetuates in eternity our desire for a crucial solitude. . . .

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Emil Cioran (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.