E.M. Cioran

we are all religious spirits without religion.

The need to devour oneself absolves one of the need to believe.

Everything that can be classified is perishable. Only what is susceptible to several interpretations endures.

In conversation with someone, whatever his merits may be, never forget for a moment that in his profound reactions he is no different from ordinary mortals. For discretion’s sake, you must handle him carefully, for like anyone else, he will not tolerate frankness, direct cause of almost all quarrels and grudges.

The older one grows, the more clearly one realizes that though one believes oneself liberated from everything, in reality one is liberated from nothing.

On a gangrened planet, we should abstain from making plans, but we make them still, optimism being, as we know, a dying man’s reflex.

Once we are grazed by certainty, we no longer mistrust ourselves and others. Confidence, in all its forms, is a source of action, hence of error.

Between Epicurism and Stoicism, which are we to choose? I shift from one to the other and most often am faithful to both at once — which is my way of espousing the maxims Antiquity preferred to the swarming of dogmas.

What I know wreaks havoc upon what I want.

What I know wreaks havoc upon what I want.