The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion... One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.
Emile M. CioranRead
An existence transfigured by failure.
Interpretation
Failure can change the way we perceive our existence and reality.
Emile M. Cioran's quote suggests that failure has the power to transform our understanding of life. It implies that our experiences of failure can lead to a profound alteration in how we view our existence, emphasizing the idea that through adversity, we can gain deeper insights into ourselves and the world around us.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a discussion about personal growth after setbacks.
The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion... One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it.
We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.
There was a time when time did not yet exist. β¦ The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.
A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.
Paradise was unendurable, otherwise the first man would have adapted to it; this world is no less so, since here we regret paradise or anticipate another one. What to do? Where to go? Do nothing and go nowhere, easy enough.
It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
That's a spiritual lifestyle, being willing to admit that you don't know everything and that you were wrong about some things. It's about making a list of all the people you've harmed, either emotionally or physically or financially, and going back and making amends. That's a spiritual lifestyle. It's not a fluffy ethereal concept.
My view is that we stand up for treating the animals in a considerate way, for completely renouncing the eating of meat and also for speaking out against it. This is what I do myself. And in this way many a one becomes aware of a problem that was put forward so late.
An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen.
We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.
Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.
The book, as it stands, seems to me to be one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read, with scarcely a sound proposition in it beginning with page 45 [Hayek provided historical background up to page 45; after that came his theoretical model], and yet it remains a book of some interest, which is likely to leave its mark on the mind of the reader. It is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.
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