Quote

Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart's drama and the negative meaning of history.

Emile M. Cioran

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Emile M. Cioran
Heart
Age
Ended
Throbbing
Thing
Show
Reached
Proudest
Natural
Cease
Sewers
History
Drama
Downfall
Shows
Negative
Constitutes
Earth
Meaning
Begun
Palpitation
Wells
Term
Decay
Engulfed
Well
Though
Badly
Sewer

More quotes by Emile M. Cioran

Image
Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: in truth, it is itself the quintessence of injustice.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
Boredom dismantles the mind, renders it superficial, out at the seams, saps it from within and dislocates it.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
No one can do without some semblance of immortality, and even less will they deny themselves the right to seek it out in the form of this or that reputation, starting with the literary... Since death has come to be accepted by all as the absolute end, everyone writes.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
The aphorism is cultivated only by those who have known fear in the midst of words, that fear of collapsing with all the words.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
Tyranny destroys or strengthens the individual freedom enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet. Man has more chances of saving himself by hell than by paradise.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
I try--without success--to stop finding reasons for vanity in anything. When I happen to manage it nonetheless, I feel that I no longer belong to the mortal gang. I am above everything then, above the gods themselves. Perhaps that is what death is: a sensation of great, of extreme superiority.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
To live... in any sense of the word... is to reject others to accept them, one must renounce, do oneself violence.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
All people see fires, storms, explosions, or landscapes but how many feel the flames, the lightnings, the whirlwinds, or the harmony? How many have an inner beauty that tinges their melancholy?
Emile M. Cioran
Image
To read is to let someone else work for you - the most delicate form of exploitation.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
Try to be free: you will die of hunger.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
Man is a robot with defects.
Emile M. Cioran
Image
It is because we are all impostors that we endure each other. The man who does not consent to lie will see the earth shrink under his feet: we are biologically obliged to the false
Emile M. Cioran