"Vague a l'ame — melancholy yearning for the end of the world."

Emil Cioran Philosophy See all quotes by Emil Cioran →

React to this quote

More by Emil Cioran

“Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!”

“Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates.”

“Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.”

“Only the idiot is equipped to breathe.”

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live — moreover, the only one.”

“The more one is obsessed with God, the less one is innocent. Nobody bothered about him in paradise. The fall brought about this divine torture. It's not possible to be conscious of divinity without guilt. Thus God is rarely to be found in an innocent soul.”

Resonant Thoughts

"As an auxiliary to all of this," he said, "I have found myself speculating upon a world in which no one ever grew up. I admit, of course, that it is a rather acrobatic feat of thinking, not entirely c…"

— Clifford D. Simak

Literature1904–1988

#time

"I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, wit…"

— Frederick Douglass

Social Activism1818–1895

#time

"Another lottery mystery that raised many eyebrows occurred in Germany on June 21, 1995. The freak event happened in a lottery called Lotto 6/49, which means that the winning six numbers are drawn from…"

— Leonard Mlodinow

Mathematics1954

#time

"The UK has always punched above its weight in music on a global level and I don’t see that changing any time soon, especially with some of the artists I know are coming in the not too distant future, …"

— Jason Iley

Politics1969

#time