374 Quotes by Emile M. Cioran

To read is to let someone else work for you - the most delicate form of exploitation.

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.

the deepest subjective experiences are also the most universal, because through them one reaches the universal source of life.

Only one thing matters: learning to be the loser.

One hardly saves a world without ruling it.

My enthusiasms...constitute my reserves, my unexploited resources, perhaps my future.

When every man has realized that his birth is a defeat, existence, endurable at last, will seem like the day after a surrender, like the relief and the repose of the conquered.

Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment.

Much more than our other needs and endeavors, it is sexuality that puts us on an even footing with our kind: the more we practice it, the more we become like everyone else: it is in the performance of a reputedly bestial function that we prove our status as citizens: nothing is more public than the sexual act.