A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.
Emile M. Cioran

A distant enemy is always preferable to one at the gate.
Emile M. Cioran

A golden rule: to leave an incomplete image of oneself.
Emile M. Cioran

A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.
Emile M. Cioran

A people represents not so much an aggregate of ideas and theories as of obsessions.
Emile M. Cioran

A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.
Emile M. Cioran

Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.
Emile M. Cioran

Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there.
Emile M. Cioran

Anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an imposter.
Emile M. Cioran

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.
Emile M. Cioran


Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself.
Emile M. Cioran

Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.
Emile M. Cioran

Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires.
Emile M. Cioran

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

Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious.
Emile M. Cioran

Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.
Emile M. Cioran

Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation.
Emile M. Cioran

Everything is pathology, except for indifference.
Emile M. Cioran

For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.
Emile M. Cioran

Glory - once achieved, what is it worth?
Emile M. Cioran