Emil Cioran Quotes

On the frontiers of the self: "What I have suffered, what I am suffering, no one will ever know, not even I."

It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?

It is not by genius, it is by suffering, and suffering alone, that one ceases to be a marionette.

As long as I live I shall not allow myself to forget that I shall die; I am waiting for death so that I can forget about it.

I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn't it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?

This is how I recognize an authentic poet: by frequenting him, living a long time in the intimacy of his work, something changes in myself, not so much my inclinations or my tastes as my very blood, as if a subtle disease had been injected to alter its course, its density and nature. To live around a true poet is to feel your blood run thin, to dream a paradise of anemia, and to hear, in your veins, the rustle of tears.

We define only out of despair, we must have a formula... to give a facade to the void.

Sooner or later, each desire must encounter its lassitude: its truth . . .

The fear of your own solitude, of its vast surface and its infinity... Remorse is the voice of solitude. And what does this whispering voice say? Everything in us that is not human anymore.

Illusion begets and sustains the world; we do not destroy one without destroying the other. Which is what I do every day. An apparently ineffectual operation, since I must begin all over again the next day.

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland — and no other.

"What is truth?" is a fundamental question. But what is it compared to "How to endure life?" And even this one pales beside the next: "How to endure oneself?" — That is the crucial question in which no one is in a position to give us an answer.

Nothing is indefensible — from the absurdest proposition to the most monstrous crime.

If to describe a misery were as easy to live through it!

"What do you do from morning to night?" "I endure myself."