E.M. Cioran

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory.

No one could survive the instantaneous comprehension of universal grief, each heart being stirred only for a certain quantity of sufferings

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.

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland — and no other.

“God has created nothing more odious to Himself than this world, and from the day He created it. He has not glanced at it again, so much does He loathe it.” The Moslem mystic who wrote that, I don’t know who it was, I shall never know this friend’s name.

Each time the future seems conceivable to me, I have the impression of having been visited by Grace.

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.

A religion is finished when only its adversaries strive to preserve its integrity.

Believing in God dispenses one from believing in any-thing else — which is an estimable advantage. I have always envied those who believed in Him, though to believe oneself God seems easier to me than believing in God.

Each desire provokes in me a counterdesire, so that whatever I do, all that matters is what I have not done.