504 Quotes by Emil Cioran

The fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for Truth.

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I’d have killed myself right away.

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

One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.

Negation is the mind’s first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to overcome it, adapt it to our needs; once acquired it can imprison us.

Maniacs of Procreation, bipeds with devalued faces, we have lost all appeal for each other.

Afflicted with existence, each man endures like an animal the consequences which proceed from it. Thus, in a world where everything is detestable, hatred becomes huger than the world and, having transcended its object, cancels itself out.

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing; but instead of nonchalantly promenading our own corruption, we exude our sweat and grow winded upon the fetid air.

Imaginary pains are by far the most real we suffer, since we feel a constant need for them and invent them because there is no way of doing without them.