374 Quotes by Emile M. Cioran

Thinking should be like musical meditation. Has any philosopher pursued a thought to its limits the way Bach or Beethoven develop and exhaust a musical theme? Even after having read the most profound thinkers, one still feels the need to begin anew. Only music gives definitive answers.

Everything is pathology, except for indifference.

Mind, even more deadly to empires than to individuals, erodes them, compromises their solidity.

To act is to anchor in an imminent future, so imminent it becomes almost tangible; to act is to feel you are consubstantial with that future.

A book is a suicide postponed.

Does our ferocity not derive from the fact that our instincts are all too interested in other people? If we attended more to ourselves and became the center, the object of our murderous inclinations, the sum of our intolerances would diminish.

Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.

For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.

A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It’s not easy to be on the wrong foot with life