Emile M. Cioran
Emile M. Cioran
NationalityRomanian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth8 April 1911
CountryRomania
country men self
A self-respecting man is a man without a country. A fatherland is birdlime...
believe suffering moments
We must suffer to the end, to the moment when we stop believing in suffering.
revenge thinking camouflage
To think is to take a cunning revenge in which we camouflage our baseness and conceal our lower instincts.
incomplete
We understand God by everything in ourselves that is fragmentary, incomplete, and inopportune.
self would-be scrutiny
Were we to undertake an exhaustive self-scrutiny, disgust would paralyze us, we would be doomed to a thankless existence.
faces lost appeals
Maniacs of Procreation, bipeds with devalued faces, we have lost all appeal for each other.
hatred vengeance pardon
To Foreswear vengeance is to chain oneself to forgiveness, to flounder in pardon, to be tainted by the hatred smothered within.
blow world language
To devastate by language, to blow up the word and with it the world.
spiritual leader limits
The more intense a spiritual leader's appetite for power, the more he is concerned to limit it to others.
exercise men duration
Tragic paradox of freedom: the mediocre men who alone make its exercise possible cannot guarantee its duration.
regret pay damage
Each 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.
ruins irritated appetite
Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.
order tyrants stuff
In order to have the stuff of a tyrant, a certain mental derangement is necessary.
mind erode empires
Mind, even more deadly to empires than to individuals, erodes them, compromises their solidity.