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
Where are my sensations? They have melted into... me, and what is this me, this self, but the sum of these evaporated sensations?
Interpretation
This quote explores the relationship between sensations and the concept of self, suggesting that our identity is shaped by our experiences.
Emile M. Cioran's quote delves into the introspective notion that our individual identity, or 'self', is fundamentally constructed from our sensations and experiences. By stating that these sensations have melted into the self, he implies that the essence of who we are is not a fixed entity but rather a fluid amalgamation of our lived experiences, emotions, and perceptions, highlighting the transient nature of identity and existence.
In practice
In a discussion about personal identity at a philosophy club meeting.
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.
It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges; and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
The knife of corruption endangered the life of New York City. The scalpel of the law is making us well again.
A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become sources of alienation, unhappiness, even self-loathing. If no jeans fit, you'll feel uncomfortable or inferior. If no housing developments reflect your taste for unique architecture, you'll write screeds against philistine mass culture.
I can't make head or tail of Life. Love is a fine thing, Art is a fine thing, Nature is a fine thing; but the average human mind and spirit are confusing beyond measure. Sometimes I think that all our learning is the little learning of the maxim. To laugh at a Roman awe-stricken in a sacred grove is to laugh at something today.
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.
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