And yet, there is an enthusiasm in Cioran’s prose that comes through, in spite of his predilection towards pessimism and despair: “It is because it rests on nothing, because it lacks even the shadow of an argument that we persevere in life"; “How invent a remedy for existence, how conclude this endless cure? It is enough for me to hear someone talk sincerely about ideals, about the future, about philosophy, to hear him say “we” with a certain inflection of assurance, to hear him invoke “others” and regard himself as their interpreter—-for me to consider him my enemy. As New, unopened and unread, clean tight sound square, crisp corners and edges, in excellent paperback wrapper. My mother used to read a lot of books when I was a child and I saw how much enjoyment these books would bring her. To the outside observer, the absolute of each life looks interchangeable, and every fate, however fixed in its essence, arbitrary.

The text consists of a series of brief reflections and short essays, usually ranging in length from one to three pages, and organized into six chapters. In 1936 Cioran published The Transfiguration of Romania, a book which argued for the installation of a totalitarian government in Romania.

And if all our actions—from breathing to the founding of empires or metaphysical systems—derive from an illusion as to our importance, the same is true a fortiori of the prophetic instinct. The idle, empty mind—which joins the world only by the grace of sleep—can practice only by extending the name of things, by emptying diem and substituting formulas for them. We derive our power from our forgetting and from our incapacity to conceive of the plurality of simultaneous fates. This book is translated from French, yet even in English it still has memorable ideas and sentences on virtually every page.

For a positive science of the meaning of life would depopulate the earth in a day, and not even a madman could succeed in reviving the fruitful improbability of Desire. Who knows, outside of the Greek and French civilizations, a more lucidly facetious proof of the elegant nothingness of things? Though its title is taken from the work of philosophy by Emil Cioran, it is not an adaptation of the book. This is how the stain the soul spread over the mind has been removed-—the only thing which reminded it that it was alive.This would not be an issue if a book is simply written, but I would say that this book is not as straightforward as the absence of an introduction implies.

Thereby we find more prestige in expression than in the soul which supports it, in grace than in intuition; emotion itself becomes polite. Not my cup of tea for several reasons, but I’ll admit you’ve shared some very interesting and thought-provoking quotes.

It is neither a sudden realization nor a series of reasonings which leads us to this equation, but the unconscious elaboration of our every moment, the contribution of all our experiences, minute or crucial. This break marked two periods in Cioran's work: an early Romanian period, and a later, mature French period. By endowing him with wickedness and perseverance our dominant qualities, we have exhausted ourselves to make him as lively as possible; our powers have been used up in creating his image, in making him agile, frisky, intelligent, ironic, and above all petty. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage.

The controversies of men, the hurricanes of history—in her eyes, trifles: her sickness alone prevailed over time and space. How turn your eyes toward the twilight ages—when the past was liquidated under a scrutiny which only the void could dazzle—without being moved by that great art which is the death of a civilization? He wrote A Short History of Decay in French, so me picking up an English translation made no difference to me picking up a Romanian translation. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. No one has found a valid goal for history; but everyone has proposed one; and in the pullulation of goals so divergent and so fantastic, the notion of finality has been canceled out and vanishes into a mocking clause of the mind.Having promoted the arbitrary to the rank of drill or delirium, depending on whether they were philosophers or disabused scions of the old conquerors, they were attached to nothing: in this regard, they suggest the saints.