504 Quotes by Emil Cioran

Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven’t been cut off.

How easy it is to be “deep”: all you have to do is let yourself sink into your own flaws.

Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers.

The curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing now but mask and ghost.

There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.

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

You are done for – a living dead man – not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life.

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.

We derive our vitality from our store of madness.