Quotes from History and Utopia — Emil Cioran
1911–1995 France
48 quotes
For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.
What does the future, that half of time, matter to the man who is infatuated with eternity?
The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.
Mind, even more deadly to empires than to individuals, erodes them, compromises their solidity.
A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.
A people represents not so much an aggregate of ideas and theories as of obsessions.
Woes and wonders of power, that tonic hell, synthesis of poison and panacea.
Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires.
What pride to discover that nothing belongs to you — what a revelation.
To devastate by language, to blow up the word and with it the world.
Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty.
A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.
No one can enjoy freedom without trembling.
Attribution
Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Emil Cioran (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.