"One would have to be as unenlightened as an angel or an idiot to imagine that the human escapade could turn out well."

Emil Cioran Philosophy See all quotes by Emil Cioran →

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

“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.”

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

“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

"Besides the importance of land and religion, the existence of a specific religion among a distinct group of people is probably a fundamental element of human experience."

— Vine Deloria Jr.

Law

#Human Nature

"If Hitler had not thrown the Communists into camps in 1933, there would have been civil war and bloodshed. The Communists would have revolted against the legally-elected government. The greatest dange…"

— Karl Dönitz

Politics1891–1980

#politics

"Photography has fulfilled my adventurous side: it is a real trade. I behaved like a thief in every country where I went, in China, in Africa, in America… all things considered, our trade is situated s…"

— Henri Cartier-Bresson

Art1908–2004

#Human Nature

"I am thinking of painting for the coming Salon a picture whose subject I shall take from the recent wars between the Turks and the Greeks. I think that.. .. this would be a way to attract some attenti…"

— Eugène Delacroix

Art1798–1863

#mind