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The history of ideas is the history of the grudges of solitary men.

Emile M. Cioran

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Emile M. Cioran
History
Ideas
Men
Grudges
Grudge
Solitary

More quotes by Emile M. Cioran

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Skepticism is the sadism of embittered souls.
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If you lack the power to demoralize yourself along with the age, to go as low and as far, do not complain of being misunderstood by it.
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Try to be free: you will die of hunger.
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Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it this world is no less so, since here we regret paradise or anticipate another one. What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough.
Emile M. Cioran
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No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
Emile M. Cioran
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One doesn't live in a country, one lives in a language.
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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
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Truths begin by a conflict with the police - and end by calling them in.
Emile M. Cioran
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What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?
Emile M. Cioran
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Nothing is so wearing as the possession or abuse of liberty.
Emile M. Cioran
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Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.
Emile M. Cioran
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What strangely enchanted tunes gush forth during those sleepless nights!
Emile M. Cioran
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I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity.
Emile M. Cioran
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The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion... One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.
Emile M. Cioran
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I cannot contribute anything to this world because I only have one method: agony.
Emile M. Cioran
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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
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Reality is a creation of our excesses.
Emile M. Cioran
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Ideas should be neutral. But man animates them with his passions and folly. Impure and turned into beliefs, they take on the appearance of reality. The passage from logic is consummated. Thus are born ideologies, doctrines, and bloody farce.
Emile M. Cioran
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The source of our actions resides in an unconscious propensity to regard ourselves as the center, the cause, and the conclusion of time. Our reflexes and our pride transform into a planet the parcel of flesh and consciousness we are.
Emile M. Cioran
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No one can enjoy freedom without trembling.
Emile M. Cioran