A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb. - Emil Cioran

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Engraved portrait of Emil Cioran, facing left

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.

English
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About Emil Cioran

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.

Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Photographer of Keyston agency/Getty Images before Rivarol Premium. Photo taken in the last years of Cioran's life-in-Romania, before his definitive transference in France (1947); first publication 1955-1960s; for Romanian law the artistic and non-artistic photo realized before 1956, or between the years 1956-1996, have their copyright expired. (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Emil Mihai Cioran Emil-Michel Cioran

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Additional quotes by Emil Cioran

The notion of nothingness is not characteristic of laboring humanity: those who toil have neither time nor inclination to weigh their dust; they resign themselves to the difficulties or the doltishness of fate; they hope: hope is a slave's virtue.

For a long time — always, in fact — I have known that life here on earth is not what I needed and that I wasn't able to deal with it; for this reason and for this reason alone, I have acquired a touch of spiritual pride, so that my existence seems to me the degradation and the erosion of a psalm.

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