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On the Heights of Despair

Emil M. Cioran,

Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston (Translator)

4.19 · Rating details · 4,794 ratings · 300 reviews

Born of a terrible insomnia—"a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell"—this book presents the youthful Emil Cioran, a self-described "Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra, his poses, his mystical clown's tricks, a whole circus of the heights."

On the Heights of Despair shows Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature w ...more

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Paperback, 128 pages

Published October 1st 1996 by University of Chicago Press (first published 1933)

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Feb 18, 2017 Florencia rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, philosophyland

How does one become a pessimist?

By reading your book, pal. You made Schopenhauer look like one of the Teletubbies. It was a fortunate thing that I didn’t read this during my impressionable adolescence. ~~I still can’t rate it~~ I think a 3-star rating is a good compromise. Many quotes that pulled on my heartstrings, and many chapters I already forgot, out of immunity to certain thoughts and dislike of overly melodramatic prose. Things that belong to the plane of ideas, naturally, since the kind of l ...more

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Sep 25, 2019 BlackOxford rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy-theology, french-language

Not Walt Whitman... But Close

This fictional memoir sums up a young man’s view of being old. Being old means finally having to confront the end of oneself. Cioran does this as a self-professed therapeutic exercise. His translator calls the book a prose “song of myself,” thus connecting Cioran with Whitman. Perhaps; but could this be more than merely the sense that each is the opposite of the other?

Whitman finds his joy and inspiration in his good health; Cioran revels in his physical suffering as Not Walt Whitman... But Close

This fictional memoir sums up a young man’s view of being old. Being old means finally having to confront the end of oneself. Cioran does this as a self-professed therapeutic exercise. His translator calls the book a prose “song of myself,” thus connecting Cioran with Whitman. Perhaps; but could this be more than merely the sense that each is the opposite of the other?

Whitman finds his joy and inspiration in his good health; Cioran revels in his physical suffering as the source of artistic virtue. Whitman is called by the “urge” of the world; Cioran feels the urge of death. Whitman celebrates; Cioran mourns. Whitman looks forward to a “lucky” Death; Cioran wants us to give Death the fear it deserves. Whitman says “I exist as I am, that is, enough.” Cioran says, “We are so lonely in life that we must ask ourselves if the loneliness of dying is not a symbol of our human existence.”

One could go on cataloguing the precise contradictions between the two. Their views on their own lives and that of the world itself are so obviously antithetical that the list of correspondences quickly becomes boring. Nonetheless there is this that makes them brothers: the irresistible necessity to express their innermost, subjective selves. Both feel they are exploding with something of universal significance. What each perceives is simply too powerful to remain hidden.

What both provide, therefore, is a sort of phenomenology of the soul. Not as a promotion or recommendation, but as a description. In a way it is not the content of each exposition that is most important but the method of construction. As Cioran says, this method is one of lyricism, that is, the attentive expression of emotions and other physical states. No ideas, no arguments, no explanation, no theory. So despite their radically different stances, Whitman and Cioran are actually similar examples of this lyrical method. They certainly aren’t philosophical positions from which to choose. ...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Jason rated it really liked it

There is a reason why certain authors, regardless of their genius, are destined to remain relatively anonymous to the wider world. Cioran is of this type. Without any reluctance he talks about ideas and emotions that most people spend the major part of their lives trying their best to repress and ignore. Some might consider this brazen, but to my mind I don't imagine he had a choice in the matter. Some thoughts need out. Some can't be resisted, like gravity. And if you had such thoughts, ones yo There is a reason why certain authors, regardless of their genius, are destined to remain relatively anonymous to the wider world. Cioran is of this type. Without any reluctance he talks about ideas and emotions that most people spend the major part of their lives trying their best to repress and ignore. Some might consider this brazen, but to my mind I don't imagine he had a choice in the matter. Some thoughts need out. Some can't be resisted, like gravity. And if you had such thoughts, ones you knew were vital to your human condition, that keeping them in would result in total inner collapse, would you do anything but fling them into the arms of others, whether they were prepared to embrace them or not?

Humans just aren't very good(by and large) at contemplating death and the futility of the things they fill their days with. Accepting what Cioran has to say is adverse to almost all intuition, even to people like me who wholly agrees with him. But there is something comforting about what he has to say(especially if you happen to be struck down by laziness much of the time). If the meaninglessness of the world is justified, then don't condemn yourself for choosing to watch Jeremy Kyle when you know someone else is out there churning out works of art. Both of these people entered the world accidentally. Both will probably stumble out. (I never watch Jeremy Kyle. I advise you do the same.) Eventually you will understand that intense work is the best you can do to keep your subjective mind content. You'll realise that subjectivity is all you can go on, something which Cioran gets at very early in the book. Before I'd read this, I'd formed some vague, unfinished idea which could only be shaped properly once Cioran had led the way: the suffering of others is no alleviator to your own suffering. Regardless of whether you are accompanied on this path of misery, or are even eclipsed in your torment by others, it is still no consolation - and never can be - because all you will ever know is your own thoughts and pain, your own subjectivity. So basically, if I was going to Hell(which I don't believe is going to happen, because I don't believe in such places), I wouldn't be comforted by the knowledge of the thousands of others coming with me. Nobody can transfer their pain onto others. At best I think this human illusion is noteworthy because it acts as a sort of mental morphine. But it doesn't delete the fundamental problem, which we must learn to exist with.

There are parts of this book which seem a little obscure, a little melodramatic. Not all is golden. But to arrive at such conclusions at twenty one is astounding, and is a bench-mark for anyone who wishes for precociousness. In the end, I find it a little sad and pathetic that Cioran will never be read as much as he deserves to be. He's too honest and blatant. His readership will never fluctuate too dramatically because the majority of people will never be persuaded that his considerations are necessary ones - except maybe on their deathbeds.

...more

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Apr 12, 2010 Szplug rated it really liked it

Ah, Cioran, twenty-two years old and already so caustically weary with that great travail called life - I remember that age well!

This is a compulsively readable shotgun blast of bleak lyricism that ofttimes offers profound insight and occasionally jejune invective. Cioran is a cruel diagnostician of despair - there is little from the realms of spiritual shadow that he is not acutely aware of - and scourges the quotidian world with its infinite banality, pointlessness, and immanent subjugation to ...more

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Sep 08, 2014 Speranza rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, my-gems, kindle

I knew when I set eyes on this book’s title that I was going to love it. It is so imperfectly perfect, so beautifully flawed, so darkly comforting for someone like me.

There are many statements in On the Heights of Despair I don’t agree with. I found Cioran’s take on women and on the difference between man and other living creatures to be too immature. He is melodramatic and over-exhilarated at times. But he touches on subjects that interest me; he thinks thoughts that I do. He is endearingly bol ...more

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Oct 20, 2019 Steven Godin rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, essays, philosophy

Before writing in French, this was philosopher Emil Cioran's first book published in Romania in 1934, when he was in his early 20s. The short pieces/essays that make up the book are full of great melancholy and bleakness, and it feels appropriate to read this when it's pitch black outside and pouring with rain, not on a nice summer's day. In Romania in the 1960s and 1970s, Cioran was seen as a mysterious, almost mythological figure. One would hear that such a person existed, but he became as inv ...more

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Apr 01, 2017 Alejandro Saint-Barthélemy rated it really liked it

Shelves: death-the-end, philosophy

It's a shame that this is Cioran's most rated book in Goodreads, since it's not his best one at all (and he knew it). Too much downmarket lyricism, too juvenile, and both the cheap lyricism and juvenality aren't as poetic as he would have liked them to be (we have Rimbaud for that, though). Cioran regreted this style in his adult books. That being said...:
1) This book has a few terrific moments, like the aphorism on the sterility of traditional wisemen.
2) It was Beckett's favourite, no matter ho ...more

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Jul 01, 2014 Freigeist rated it really liked it

We live in an age in which it is almost a sin to be unhappy, this book is a fine antidote to that stupidity.

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Dec 05, 2018 0 rated it really liked it

Shelves: nihilism-pessimism

I keep returning to Cioran because I think, on the other side of his melodramatic griping, there are keys to living a fulfilling life.

"Where does happiness begin? When we have persuaded ourselves that there is no truth. All salvation comes thenceforth, even salvation through nothing. He who does not believe in the impossibility of truth, or does not rejoice in it, has only one road to salvation, which he will, however, never find."

For Cioran, the evolution of consciousness, which is unique to h I keep returning to Cioran because I think, on the other side of his melodramatic griping, there are keys to living a fulfilling life.

"Where does happiness begin? When we have persuaded ourselves that there is no truth. All salvation comes thenceforth, even salvation through nothing. He who does not believe in the impossibility of truth, or does not rejoice in it, has only one road to salvation, which he will, however, never find."

For Cioran, the evolution of consciousness, which is unique to humans, is a curse upon our existence. Consciousness bestows upon us the condition of living a divided life, because it adds to our direct experience of the present another, more ghostly experience--that of an ideal present, an "elsewhere," which makes our "here" seem imperfect by comparison, and yet which always remains, cruelly, out of our reach. Nothing can dispel our ensnarement to ideas for very long, since it appears to be an ontological structure of our existence. Only by leaning into that suffering which is born of our condition of conscious lack are we capable of achieving some momentary semblance of comfort. This is because great suffering reveals to us the absurdity of our lives. By revealing life as absurd, we are offered the chance to embrace the absurdity of life--learning to love our symptom. Unfortunately, due to the force of evolutionary habit, we can't sustain these feelings for long. Not even the thought of our inevitable death can save us, because even though death ends our suffering, it is also the source of much of our suffering, since the foreknowledge of our death injects suffering into our lives.

A long quote:

"When all the current reasons--moral, esthetic, religious, social, and so on--no longer guide one's life, how can one sustain life without succumbing to its nothingness? Only by a connection with the absurd, by love of absolute uselessness, loving something which does not have substance but which illustrates an illusion of life.

I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing . The passion for the absurd can grow only in a man who has exhausted everything, yet is still capable of undergoing awesome transfigurations. For one who has lost everything there is nothing left in life except the passion of the absurd. What else in life could still move such a person? What seductions? Some say: self-sacrifice for humanity, the public good, the cult of the beautiful, and so forth. I like only those people who have done away with all that--even for a short time. Only they have lived in an absolute manner. Only they have the right to speak about life. You can recover love or serenity. But you recover it through heroism, not ignorance. An existence which does not hide a great madness has no value. How is it different from the existence of a stone, a piece of wood, or something rotten? And yet I tell you: you must hide a great madness in order to want to become stone, wood, or rot. Only when you have tasted all the poisoning sweetness of the absurd are you fully purified, because only then will you have pushed negation to its final expression. And are not all final expressions absurd?"

It's these brief moments of comfort, respite, vitality, and even fulfillment that make Cioran, I think, worth reading. Nothing else I've read so far has so fully embraced the contradictions of nihilism and pessimism, and therein found a motive for living. Cioran suggests that even if we cannot entirely accept nothingness, we can sometimes be overcome by it, and on the heights of despair, momentarily lose our sense of self, and find peace.

...more

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Jul 25, 2013 orendak rated it it was amazing

Like many other books, this one is anything but an escape. It impugns reality and swirls it around with words like chaos, insomnia, love, death, suicide and the like. This is one of the most provocative books I have ever read. It is very hard to give a review on this dark, extensional author who is commonly known as the “king of pessimists”.
This was the first book I read by Ciroan, the then 22 year old Cioran managed to keep me up till 5 in the morning with shivers. “There is always a serious da Like many other books, this one is anything but an escape. It impugns reality and swirls it around with words like chaos, insomnia, love, death, suicide and the like. This is one of the most provocative books I have ever read. It is very hard to give a review on this dark, extensional author who is commonly known as the “king of pessimists”.
This was the first book I read by Ciroan, the then 22 year old Cioran managed to keep me up till 5 in the morning with shivers. “There is always a serious danger in repressing something which requires objectification” (he mentions in the beginning of the book) and this is exactly what he did. He picked up topics we have shunned down somewhere deep inside our head because of the agony, confusion or dismay they would cause. He embodied those words- made them sound way grave than I expected and pieced me with every word. He often asks more questions than he answers and they are more than enough to get your heart racing with feelings of caducity, fragility and emptiness. Nothingness, lyricism, the absurd, the world and I – Cioran probed the reality of existence. The iterate use of statements that implied the simulacra of a ‘life’ created by the world is nothing but an illusion. He urged the way of solitude, restlessness, madness and the ‘indirect animals’ we already are.
In spite of all this, it is so ironically life-affirming and inspiring. I will never be able to be the same after reading this book; also I have read it nearly every night since.

“Love your unhappiness and hate your
happiness, mix everything up, scramble it all! Be a snowflake dancing in the air, a
flower floating downstream! Have courage when you don't need to, and be a coward
when you must be brave! Who knows? You may still be a winner! And if you lose,
does it really matter? Is there anything to win in this world? All gain is a loss, and all loss is a gain. Why always expect a definite stance, clear ideas, and meaningful words? I
feel as if I should spout fire in response to all the questions which were ever put, or
not put, to me”
...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Andreea Obreja rated it really liked it

Shelves: owned, romanian-literature, non-fiction, read-in-romanian

I can say I don't agree on most of the ideas in this book and I wonder how can someone live like this? Thinking no one ever does an altruistic gesture and vices being the best thing to have, otherwise you're boring?!
I do understand him at some points, as pessimism and depression are opaque and subjective feelings you can hardly see through...
Unbelievable but among all that pessimism I could find some optimism, paradoxically (as he keeps repeating! The beginning and the ending have kind of brig ...more

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Sep 24, 2016 Mahak rated it it was amazing

Don't be afraid to ask for a hug when you want one; you do matter (just saying). *shrugs :D

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Nov 04, 2014 James rated it it was amazing

I do think I may have finally found a philosopher whose work I can not only relate to but utterly enjoy. I blew through this one in under 24 hours, and thoroughly loved it. Like J.K. Huysmans, H.P. Lovecraft, and Thomas Ligotti (in fact, it was through Ligotti that I first ever even heard of Cioran), this E.M. Cioran transforms ennui, despair and cosmic pessimism into pure poisonous poetry. My only "problem" with the book was I had to keep pausing from my reading to jot down a line that I found ...more

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Sep 07, 2017 Tariq Fadel rated it it was amazing

Wow this book is very...very dark, but what do you expect from a book called "on the heights of despair"! Emil Cioran is cleaely inspired by Nietzsche. His pessimistic view on existence is due to the nonexistence of objective truth. But he differs from Nietzsche in that he doesn't preach of the glory of the ubermench, nor does he like Camus end his book on a lighter note by claiming that one can be happy with the absurdity of existence. His view is much....much depressing; the universe is absurd ...more

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Sep 11, 2010 Gerardo rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy, favorites

"A little knowledge is delightful; a lot, disgusting. The more you know the less you want to know. He who has not sufferd from knowledge has never known anything."

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Jan 08, 2015 Maddie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-stars

if you've ever laid in bed at 3am staring at the ceiling, you'll know what this book is about.
also, to my philosophy teacher who said I'd go insane afer reading this - that all you got?

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Jan 23, 2018 Andy rated it really liked it

This is an intense read that's a little hard to rate frankly. I suppose this book is depressing in a way but it's consoling too. But then I thought the same thing about Ligotti's "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race," so make of that what you will.

At several points Cioran argues in favor of despair, in order to feel deep passion. To reach the heights of despair is almost akin to becoming Nietzsche's ubermensch. "An existence which does not hide a great madness has no value. How is it different ...more

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Jun 19, 2009 Matthew rated it it was ok

I must be pretty miserable right now to be reading both this book and several introductions to Schopenhauer. I like Cioran a lot, but his earliest work is definitely not his best. It's kind of like a bunch of prose poems written by a very earnest youth with a penchant for melodrama. It isn't surprising that I find myself rolling my eyes at him pretty frequently. Still, I've been copying down passages every couple of pages, so there is some good stuff in here.

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Jan 14, 2008 Andrew added it

Shelves: essays

First off, I should say that Cioran is a total fucker, with no capability of dealing with the world apparently. However, this is one of the most poignant books I've ever read. Not only does he write like an angel, this will immediately resonate with anyone who has ever experienced crippling, perpetual depression. Read this one in a fit of anomie and contempt. Probably as good a time as any.

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Sep 23, 2011 Paul Toth rated it it was amazing

The most relentlessly-pessimistic author not to have killed himself and, therefore, the writer of our only true solace: We need not waste time seeking solace. Warning to optimists: Reading E.M. Cioran's work may kill you.

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Jun 11, 2017 তানজীম Rahman) rated it it was amazing

"An existence which does not hide
a great madness has no value. how is it different from the existence of a stone, a
piece of wood, or something rotten?"

Just a fantastic, fantastic read.
This is one of those occasions when I don’t agree with the writer on many points, but still understand his particular way of thinking. And in the case of Emil Cioran, that way of thinking is refreshingly bitter; beautiful in its sadness.
Cioran is a worthy entry in the long line of pessimistic philosophers. To him ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Chris Godber rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Recently I finished E . M Cioran's - On the heights of Despair. It's a book written whilst deep under the grip of insomnia by the existential / nihilist philosopher exploring the nature of life, and purpose, and also the inevitability of suffering. Sounds like a really dreary premise? It's actually written in this interesting lyrical format that is vivid and almost strangely life affirming, Cioran transforms accepting suffering and darkness and horror into a positive, a kind of fingers up to fee ...more

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May 15, 2011 Stebbins rated it liked it

Shelves: romanian, aphorisms, 20th-century, essays, philosophy, continental-philosophy, 2011, favourites

Cioran's particular brand of melancholy fatalism sours any sort of existential insight that can be had from this book.

Laid out as a series of short, topical essays ranging in length from small paragraphs to a few pages, each is a snapshot or distillation of Cioran's views on despair, death, and lyricism.

While he makes some lambent points, especially with concern to the often hubristic certitude of philosophers, he makes an even greater number of absurd points. All the while, his self-absorbed, a ...more

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Nov 11, 2012 B rated it liked it

This book is a collection of poetic meditations on despair. An explosion of lyricism. A passionate description of the inner torment that some of us go trough and have to deal with. It's both depressing and exhilarating at the same time. It can lead you to some interesting insights but you'll have to brave trough a lot of nonsense as well. Overall, a good read for those who enjoy pessimism and philosophical ramblings.

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Sep 08, 2013 'hayat rated it it was amazing

Okay, here's a thing or two about this book. This is easily my favourite "philosophical" book. It's so raw, and humane and majestic and I just love it so much. I haven't finished it yet, I don't want to because I want to always be able to go back to it and discover more into it and then forget it and then re-read it, etc etc.

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Feb 17, 2007 Xio rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dontownbutwhenicanreaditido, essays

After Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. Cioran is next in line ( was going to say in the gang rape, he he ho but let's make it a consensual one...) for my beloveds my agents provacateurs the main males in my mind. however you'd like to hear it. Brilliant brilliant.

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Jun 03, 2015 psychonout rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I am: therefore the world is meaningless.

So you witnessed old age, pain, and death and told yourself that pleasure is an illusion and that the pleasure seekers do not understand the inconstancy of things. Then you shunned the world, persuaded that nothing will endure. "I will not return," you proclaimed, "before I have escaped birth, old age, and death."

If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irratio ...more

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Nov 07, 2019 Nikola Korbuc rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: west-philosophy-psychology-etc, cioran, romanian

Somewhat self-indulgent and unwittingly artificial (to an understated comic degree, be it consciously so or otherwise, which he will masterfully exploit in his more mature works), though interspersed with glimpses of sudden revelatory vision, almost religious in its constructed fervour - this is essayistic prose beginning to run amok with a poetic turn of phrase, these the impracticable ramblings of a Nietzschean dilettante in the particular intellectual atmosphere of Europe entre deux guerres. ...more

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Oct 01, 2015 Matthew Hunter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, romanian-literature

Never heard of E.M. Cioran? Me neither till recently. Not surprising since he bludgeons readers about the ear, nose and throat with nihilism, apocalypse, despair, decay, absurdity, alienation, futility, and the irrationality of our existence. Here's a passage from Cioran's short essay "Nothing Matters":

Everything is possible, and yet nothing is. All is permitted, and yet again, nothing. No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or

Everything is possible, and yet nothing is. All is permitted, and yet again, nothing. No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent.... There is nothing worth more than anything else, nor any idea better than any other. Why grow sad from one's sadness and delight in one's joy? What does it matter whether our tears come from pleasure or pain? Love your unhappiness and hate your happiness, mix everything up, scramble it all!

Intrigued? Appalled? Here's more from the 22-year-old Nietsche-boy (from "The Sense of Endings"):

To survive moments of extreme organic tension is not a merit but a mark of imbecility. Survive, only to return to the banality of existence? Survival is equally meaningless after the experience of nothingness and after the paroxysm of sexual pleasure. I can't understand why people do not commit suicide during orgasm, why they don't think survival commonplace and vulgar. Such an intense though brief quiver should reduce us to ashes in seconds. But if it does not kill us, we should kill ourselves.

Cioran would have us live honestly in the moment, burning with intense, passionate fire that threatens constantly to overwhelm in the face of general meaninglessness. Pleasure's good, helps us forget our pathetic lot. So why dampen pleasure with moral and theological frameworks of sin and corruption? In fact, a time of peak pleasure is a great time to off oneself! Lord have mercy, E.M. You make Holden Caulfield sound like The Beaver.

Perception of On the Heights of Despair's all about context, I guess. Living under Stalin's iron utopian thumb would be enough to squeeze nihilism out of even the most optimistic of souls. If I was suffering physical and mental torture under a tyrant, would I be comforted by the notion that death, even by suicide, would end all suffering and pain? Perhaps. I hope to never find out.

By all means, read Cioran. There's lyrical beauty amidst the snarling pain. ...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Adrian kambeck rated it really liked it

An immaculate murmur leaving a bracing inscription, a passionate account of birth's infirmities, an appropriate stoning of the ill-celebrated birth(the 'real evil'), & once this is behind us, the dictated sovereign good of the new inhaling vibration will then struggle & suffer in the anguishing misery of awareness, birth's evil gift. In knowing this despair & thus the irrationality of existence, Cioran reveals the true power & nature of chaos, madness, nothing, endings, nonsense, decay, silence ...more

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About Emil M. Cioran

Emil M. Cioran

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Born in 1911 in Rășinari, a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, raised under the rule of a father who was a Romanian Orthodox priest and a mother who was prone to depression, Emil Cioran wrote his first five books in Romanian. Some of these are collections of brief essays (one or two pages, on average); others are collections of aphorisms. Suffering from insomnia since his adoles Born in 1911 in Rășinari, a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, raised under the rule of a father who was a Romanian Orthodox priest and a mother who was prone to depression, Emil Cioran wrote his first five books in Romanian. Some of these are collections of brief essays (one or two pages, on average); others are collections of aphorisms. Suffering from insomnia since his adolescent years in Sibiu, the young Cioran studied philosophy in the “little Paris” of Bucarest.
A prolific publicist, he became a well-known figure, along with Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noïca, and his future close friend Eugene Ionesco (with whom he shared the Royal Foundation’s Young Writers Prize in 1934 for his first book, On the Heights of Despair).

Influenced by the German romantics, by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Lebensphilosophie of Schelling and Bergson, by certain Russian writers, including Chestov, Rozanov, and Dostoyevsky, and by the Romanian poet Eminescu, Cioran wrote lyrical and expansive meditations that were often metaphysical in nature and whose recurrent themes were death, despair, solitude, history, music, saintliness and the mystics (cf. Tears and Saints, 1937) – all of which are themes that one finds again in his French writings. In his highly controversial book, The Transfiguration of Romania (1937), Cioran, who was at that time close to the Romanian fascists, violently criticized his country and his compatriots on the basis of a contrast between such “little nations” as Romania, which were contemptible from the perspective of universal history and great nations, such as France or Germany, which took their destiny into their own hands.

After spending two years in Germany, Cioran arrived in Paris in 1936. He continued to write in Romanian until the early 1940s (he wrote his last article in Romanian in 1943, which is also the year in which he began writing in French). The break with Romanian became definitive in 1946, when, in the course of translating Mallarmé, he suddenly decided to give up his native tongue since no one spoke it in Paris. He then began writing in French a book that, thanks to numerous intensive revisions, would eventually become the impressive 'A Short History of Decay' (1949) -- the first of a series of ten books in which Cioran would continue to explore his perennial obsessions, with a growing detachment that allies him equally with the Greek sophists, the French moralists, and the oriental sages. He wrote existential vituperations and other destructive reflections in a classical French style that he felt was diametrically opposed to the looseness of his native Romanian; he described it as being like a “straight-jacket” that required him to control his temperamental excesses and his lyrical flights. The books in which he expressed his radical disillusionment appeared, with decreasing frequency, over a period of more than three decades, during which time he shared his solitude with his companion Simone Boué in a miniscule garret in the center of Paris, where he lived as a spectator more and more turned in on himself and maintaining an ever greater distance from a world that he rejected as much on the historical level (History and Utopia, 1960) as on the ontological (The Fall into Time, 1964), raising his misanthropy to heights of subtlety (The Trouble with being Born, 1973), while also allowing to appear from time to time a humanism composed of irony, bitterness, and preciosity (Exercices d’admiration, 1986, and the posthumously published Notebooks).

Denied the right to return to Romania during the years of the communist regime, and attracting international attention only late in his career, Cioran died in Paris in 1995.

Nicolas Cavaillès
Translated by Thomas Cousineau ...more

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“I don’t understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn’t it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?” — 436 likes

“As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?” — 314 likes

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