"One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland — and no other."

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!”

“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.”

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

“Only the idiot is equipped to breathe.”

“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

"Why, reader, truly, if they asked thee or me, Which way we meant to vote?—were it not our likeliest answer: Neither way! I, as a Tenpound Franchiser, will receive no bribe; but also I will not vote fo…"

— Thomas Carlyle

Philosophy1795–1881

#justice

"It is easy to get to a higher number when you are not asking anything difficult from yourself."

— Barack Obama

Politics1961

#family

"I am a Hindu by birth. And yet I do not know much of Hinduism, and I know less of other religions. In fact I do not know where I am, and what is and what should be my belief. I intend to make a carefu…"

— Mahatma Gandhi

Politics1869–1948

#knowledge

"This is what the visitor said the Ethicals had learned from the Ancients. The Creator, God, the One Spirit, call it what you will, forms all. It is the universe; the universe is it. But its body is fo…"

— Philip José Farmer

Literature1918–2009

#knowledge