"If there was a God of sorrow, he would grow black heavy wings, to soar not for the skies, but for inferno."

Emil Cioran Philosophy See all quotes by Emil Cioran →

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“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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"So history has to be studied, it is very painful history. But it is not more painful than most countries have had. ...It isn't India alone that has had a rough time, that has to be understood. But the…"

— Ibn Battuta

Literature1304–1368

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"...an anti-racist in his heart. Two, he’s old-school. He’s like me. He doesn’t know the buzzwords. He doesn’t endorse reparations, one moment in the last 30 years, silent on it. He has the consistency…"

— Cornel West

Politics1953

#time

"There are two types of wine essentially, and everybody knows this. There’s the one where you drink it and go, "Mmmm, well that’s ok, can we get 8 of those please, give us 8 of those." There’s the othe…"

— Dylan Moran

Entertainment1971

#knowledge

"Stuff your eyes with wonder," he said, "live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no securi…"

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#life