Home / Authors / Emile M. Cioran

Emile M. Cioran

Emile M. Cioran Quotes

Philosopher

Emile M. Cioran was a Romanian-born French philosopher known for his pessimistic and existentialist views. His works deeply explored the essence of human existence, suffering, and nihilism.

Filter quotes by topic

All Men Ifs World Dies Existence Ideas Moments Suffering Mind Feels People Humans Should Solitude Thinking Way Born Long Madness Needs

Famous Emile M. Cioran Quotes

“A man who fears ridicule will never go far, for good or ill: he remains on this side of this talents, and even if he has genius, he is doomed to mediocrity.”

Ifs Men Sides Talent Genius Remains Ill Mediocrity Doomed Ridicule

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“How good would it be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void.”

Ifs Dies Infinite Oneself Throwing Void

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“You cannot protect your solitude if you cannot make yourself odious.”

Ifs Solitude Protect

Book:All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

Source: All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

“I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity.”

Ifs World Born Mystery This World Forgiving Faults Committed Gravity Betrayed Pledge Nameless

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“If we manage to last in spite of everything, it is because our infirmities are so many and so contradictory that they cancel each other out.”

Ifs Lasts Manage Spite Contradictory Infirmity

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion... One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.”

Ifs Moments Light Return Madness Chaos Complicated Welcome Not Afraid Reunion Premonition Lucidity

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“If a man has not, by the time he is thirty, yielded to the fascination of every form of extremism—I don't know whether he is to be admired or scorned, regarded as a saint or a corpse.”

Ifs Knows Men Form Saint Thirty Fascination Corpses Extremism Scorned

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly.”

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“We are so lonely in life that we must ask ourselves if the loneliness of dying is not a symbol of our human existence.”

Ifs Humans Asks Existence Dying Loneliness Lonely Symbols Human Existence So Lonely

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“The deepest and most organic death is death in solitude, when even light becomes a principle of death. In such moments you will be severed from life, from love, smiles, friends and even from death. And you will ask yourself if there is anything besides the nothingness of the world and your own nothingness.”

Ifs World Moments Light Asks Principles Solitude Nothingness Smile Love

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.”

Ifs Knows Reason Character Lying Answers Sincere Irrational

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.”

Ifs Wells Mean Long Done Saint Boring Dull Long Ago Banality

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“At this very moment, I am suffering—as we say in French, j’ai mal. This event, crucial for me, is nonexistent, even inconceivable for anyone else, for everyone else. Except for God, if that word can have a meaning.”

Ifs Moments Suffering Events Crucial

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.”

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“No one recovers from the disease of being born, a deadly wound if there ever was one.”

Ifs Born Disease Wounds Reincarnation Giving Birth

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?”

Ifs Would Be Left Tragedy Insects

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.”

Ifs Writing Book Dare

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“Impossible to spend sleepless nights and accomplish anything: if, in my youth, my parents had not financed my insomnias, I should surely have killed myself.”

Ifs Should Night Parent Impossible Youth Accomplish Insomnia Sleepless Nights

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“We would not be interested in human beings if we did not have the hope of someday meeting someone worse off than ourselves.”

Ifs Humans Human Beings Meetings Someday Meeting Someone

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster.”

Ifs Wells Ideas Cases Atheism Positive Atheism Monsters Tyrants Martyr Fanatics Fanaticism

Book:A short history of decay

Source: A short history of decay

“If you're unlucky enough not to have alcoholic parents, it takes you a whole lifetime of intoxication to overcome the dead weight of their virtues.”

Ifs Enough Whole Parent Virtue Overcoming Weight Lifetime Whole Life Beer Alcoholics Intoxication Unlucky

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: "I want to be praised."”

Ifs Want Action Desire Secret Plans Inspire Confession Secret Desire

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“The only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster: if we succeed, there are no further surprises, we are superior to whatever occurs, we are invincible victims.”

Ifs Way Ideas Next Succeed Victim Surprise Endure Disaster Superiors Invincible

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.”

Book:All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

Source: All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

“If just once you were depressed for no reason, you have been so all your life without knowing.”

Ifs Has Beens Reason Knowing No Reason

Book:All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

Source: All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

“As art sinks into paralysis, artists multiply. This anomaly ceases to be one if we realize that art, on its way to exhaustion, has become both impossible and easy.”

Ifs Way Art Artist Easy Realizing Impossible Cease Exhaustion Paralysis Anomalies

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“If we had the courage to confront the doubts we timidly conceive about ourselves, none of us would utter an 'I' without shame.”

Ifs Doubt Shame

Book:A short history of decay

Source: A short history of decay

“Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again.”

Ifs Company Solitude Waste Meetings Encounters Introvert Doing Nothing

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“Every word affords me pain. Yet how sweet it would be if I could hear what the flowers have to say about death!”

Ifs Would Be Pain Death Sweet Flower If I Could

Book:All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

Source: All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

“Does 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.”

People Ifs Doe Facts Objects Instinct Intolerance Aggression Diminish Inclination Ferocity

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“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.”

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“It has been a long time since philosophers have read men's souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.”

Ifs Men Long Has Beens Soul Matter Long Time Tasks Philosopher

Book:The Trouble with Being Born

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“If you lack the power to demoralize yourself along with the age, to go as low and as far, do not complain of being misunderstood by it.”

Ifs Age Lows Complaining Misunderstood Being Misunderstood

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“To write books is to have a certain relation with original sin. For what is a book if not a loss of innocence, an act of aggression, a repetition of our Fall?”

Ifs Writing Book Certain Fall Loss Sin Relation Originals Innocence Aggression Repetition Original Sin Loss Of Innocence

Author:Emile M. Cioran

“If, at the limit, you can rule without crime, you cannot do so without injustices.”

Ifs Crime Limits Injustice

Author:Emile M. Cioran

About the Author

Born: April 8, 1911
Died: June 20, 1995
Known for: Philosopher
Quotes: 372

Related Topics

Men Ifs World Dies Existence Ideas Moments Suffering Mind Feels People Humans Should Solitude Thinking Way Born Long Madness Needs

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Trouble with Being BornRelated source material

A short history of decayRelated source material

All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and ApothegmsRelated source material

The fall into timeRelated source material

Similar Authors

Albert CamusBrowse related quotes
Jean-Paul SartreBrowse related quotes
Arthur SchopenhauerBrowse related quotes
Gilbert K. ChestertonBrowse related quotes
Mehmet Murat IldanBrowse related quotes
Robert Green IngersollBrowse related quotes
Friedrich NietzscheBrowse related quotes
Simone de BeauvoirBrowse related quotes
Thomas CarlyleBrowse related quotes
Fyodor DostoevskyBrowse related quotes