I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies.

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies.

Emil M. Cioran
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If just once you were depressed for no reason, you have been so all your life without knowing it.Becoming: an agony without an ending.The older I grow, the less I enjoy performing my little Hamlet. The desire to die was my one and only concern; to it I have sacrificed everything, even death. If History had a goal, how lamentable would be the fate of those of us who have accomplished nothing!On the frontiers of the self: ‘What I have suffered, what I am suffering, no one will ever know, not even I’. Events - tumours of time.Man secretes disaster.The secret of my adaptation to life? - I’ve changed despairs the way I’ve changed shirts. Each day is a Rubicon in which I aspire to be drowned.

Emil M. Cioran
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This is how I recognize an authentic poet: by frequenting him, living a long time in the intimacy of his work, something changes in myself, not so much my inclinations or my tastes as my very blood, as if a subtle disease had been injected to alter its course, its density and nature. To live around a true poet is to feel your blood run thin, to dream a paradise of anemia, and to hear, in your veins, the rustle of tears.

Emil M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay
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The more we frequent men, the blacker our thoughts; and when, to clarify them, we return to our solitude, we find there the shadow they have cast.

Emil M. Cioran
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The cynicism of utter solitude is a calvary relieved by insolence.

Emil M. Cioran
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As far back as I can remember, I’ve utterly destroyed within myself the pride of being human. And I saunter to the periphery of the Race like a timorous monster, lacking the energy to claim kinship with some other band of apes.

Emil M. Cioran
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That there should be a reality hidden behind appearances is, after all, quite possible; that language might render such a thing would be an absurd hope.

Emil M. Cioran
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What are the occupations of the sage? He resigns himself to seeing, to eating, etc…., he accepts in spite of himself this “wound with nine openings,” which is what the Bhagavad-Gita calls the body.―Wisdom? To undergo with dignity the humiliation inflicted upon us by our holes.

Emil M. Cioran
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True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.

Emil M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
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Animal banished from life, man's condition is tragic, for he no longer finds fulfillment in life's simple values. For animals, life is all there is; for man, life is a question mark. An irreversible question mark, for man has never found, nor will ever find, any answers. Life not only has no meaning; it can never have one.

Emil M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
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It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: In truth it is itself the quintessence of injustice.

Emil M. Cioran
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