I was walking late one night along a tree-lined path; a chestnut fell at my feet. The noise it made as it burst, the resonance it provoked in me, and an upheaval out of all proportion to this insignificant event thrust me into miracle, into the rapture of the definitive, as if there were no more questions-only answers. I was drunk on a thousand unexpected discoveries, none of which I could make use of. ... This is how I nearly reached the Supreme. But instead I went on with my walk.
Emile M. CioranWhat can be said, lacks reality. Only what fails to make its way into words exists and counts.
Emile M. CioranFear can supplant our real problems only to the extent -unwilling either to assimilate or to exhaust it -we perpetuate it within ourselves like a temptation and enthrone it at the very heart of our solitude.
Emile M. CioranNot to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately, it is within no one's reach.
Emile M. CioranIn a republic, that paradise of debility, the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.
Emile M. CioranWe cannot consent to be judged by someone who has suffered less than ourselves. And since each of us regards himself as an unrecognized Job.
Emile M. CioranNever to have occasion to take a position, to make up one's mind, or to define oneself - there is no wish I make more often.
Emile M. CioranAfter having struggled madly to solve all problems, after having suffered on the heights of despair, in the supreme hour of revelation, you will find that the only answer, the only reality, is silence.
Emile M. CioranThe obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.
Emile M. CioranA great step forward was made the day men understood that in order to torment one another more efficiently they would have to gather together, to organize themselves into a society
Emile M. CioranIn most cases we attach ourselves to in order to take revenge on life, to punish it, to signify we can do without it, that we have found something better, and we also attach ourselves to God in horror of men.
Emile M. CioranWe understand God by everything in ourselves that is fragmentary, incomplete, and inopportune.
Emile M. CioranIt is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. The man who does not consent to lie will see the earth shrink under his feet: we are biologically obliged to the false
Emile M. CioranShow me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart's drama and the negative meaning of history.
Emile M. CioranIt is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
Emile M. CioranWhen you have understood that nothing is, that things do not even deserve the status of appearances, you no longer need to be saved, you are saved, and miserable forever.
Emile M. CioranThose who believe in their truth -- the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men -- leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.
Emile M. CioranDo I look like someone who has something to do here on earth?' —That's what I'd like to answer the busybodies who inquire into my activities.
Emile M. CioranImaginary pains are by far the most real we suffer, since we feel a constant need for them and invent them because there is no way of doing without them.
Emile M. CioranA decadent civilization compromises with its disease, cherishes the virus infecting it, loses its self-respect.
Emile M. CioranSpeech and silence. We feel safer with a madman who talks than with one who cannot open his mouth.
Emile M. CioranDoes our ferocity not derive from the fact that our instincts are all too interested in other people? If we attended more to ourselves and became the center, the object of our murderous inclinations, the sum of our intolerances would diminish.
Emile M. CioranAn individual dies ... when, instead of taking risks and hurling himself toward being, he cowers within, and takes refuge there.
Emile M. CioranWe would not be interested in human beings if we did not have the hope of someday meeting someone worse off than ourselves.
Emile M. CioranEach of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact.
Emile M. CioranEach of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.
Emile M. CioranThe desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death.
Emile M. CioranHow important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.
Emile M. Cioran