374 Quotes by Emile M. Cioran

Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious.

Every word affords me pain. Yet how sweet it would be if I could hear what the flowers have to say about death!

We derive our vitality from our store of madness.

Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.

Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact.

Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

A book has to dig through the wounds, more, it has cause a new one, a book it has to be dangerous.

Knowledge, having irritated and stimulated our appetite for power, will lead us inexorably to our ruin.

In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world.