"Each time I fail to think about death, I have the impression of cheating, of deceiving someone in me."

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.”

“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

"Gabriel scowled through his glasses. Why were ghosts such imbeciles? Who could be blamed for striving, at any cost, to avoid forever the decay-of-self that death was?"

— Tim Powers

Literature1952

#death

"Well, method is, it seems to me, a natural growth out of a need, and from a need the modern artist has found new ways of expressing the world about him. I happen to find ways that are different from t…"

— Jackson Pollock

Art1912–1956

#nature

"I just found out about this last week. There is — has always been available to all — everybody … that does a negotiation on a film, an "inclusion rider" which means that you can ask for and/or demand …"

— Frances McDormand

Entertainment1957

#philosophy

"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every …"

— Learned Hand

Law1872–1961

#education