504 Quotes by Emil Cioran

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.

We cannot be normal and alive at the same time.

I feel completely detached from any country, any group. I am a metaphysically displaced person.

To accomplish nothing and die of the strain.

A sensation must have fallen very low to deign to turn into an idea.

A garbled quotation is equivalent to a betrayal, an insult, a prejudice.

Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it; this world is no less so, since here we regret paradise or anticipate another one. What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough.

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.

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.