84 Quotes by Mircea Eliade

Perhaps never before in history has the artist been so certain that the more daring, iconoclastic, absurd, and inaccessible he is, the more he will be recognized, praised, spoiled, idolatrized. In some countries the result has even been an academicism in reverse, the academicism of the “avant-garde” - to such a point that any artistic experience that makes no concessions to this new conformism is in danger of being stifled or ignored.

...through reading, the modern man succeeds in obtaining an "escape from time" comparable to the "emegence from time" effected by myths. (...) Reading projects him out if his personal duration and incorporates him into other rythms, makes him live in another "history".

Nu mă pot lăsa posedat de un eveniment, oricât ar fi el de actual și de catastrofal. Îl discut un ceas, două, încerc să-l înțeleg, mă acomodez sau nu mă acomodez cu el, dar apoi trec mai departe și mă ocup de altceva. Măcar atâta libertate să mai profităm cât ni se îngăduie: libertatea de a ne alege subiectele de reflecție, de conversație sau glumă...

Trăiește el, ca om, ca ființă totală - și nu se lasă trăit de țesuturile lui, de glandele lui, de automatismele lui, ca noi toți, ceștilalți...

The country of the souls is underneath us, toward the sunset; the trail leads through a dim twilight. Tracks of the people who last went over it and of their dogs are visible.

Then with his first step he goes to (the hell of) evil thoughts, with his second to (the hell of) evil words, and with his third to (the hell of) evil deeds.

And since a more convincing argument could not be found—aside from a fatal accident or suicide—this way was chosen: a process of galloping senescence.

În literatură, oamenii elementari, cu pasiuni puternice, dominați de un singur viciu sau oarecum maniaci, par vii și autentici. Ceilalți, mai ales oamenii buni, blânzi, inteligenți și, în primul rând, oamenii preocupați de probleme morale, par fazi, fără contur, lipsiți de personalitate. În fond, literar vorbind, sunt neinteresanți.

It would be frightening to think that in all the cosmos, which is so harmonious, so complete and equal to itself, that only human life is happening randomly, that only one's destiny lacks meaning.