504 Quotes by Emil Cioran

To Live signifies to believe and hope - to lie and to lie to oneself.

Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.

Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown.

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.

Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there.

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

Word - that invisible dagger.

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.

I have no nationality - the best possible status for an intellectual.