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
If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Truth can be seen as unexciting, and the concept of God offers an escape from that monotony.
In this quote, Cioran suggests that the objective nature of truth can often feel tedious or uninspiring. He implies that belief in God and the narratives surrounding spirituality serve as a refuge from the mundane realities of life, providing wonder and excitement that truth alone may lack.
Themes
TruthScienceGodSpiritualityBanality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the relationship between faith and reason.
More from Emile M. Cioran
All quotes →We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.
Emile M. CioranRead
There was a time when time did not yet exist. … The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.
Emile M. CioranRead
A marvel that has nothing to offer, democracy is at once a nation's paradise and its tomb.
Emile M. CioranRead
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.
Emile M. CioranRead
It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
Emile M. CioranRead
Similar quotes
Old age is the only disease you dont want to be cured of.
Orson WellesRead
We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.
RupaulRead
Live for this life as though you live in it forever and live for the life to come as though you die tomorrow.
'Amr Ibn Al-'AsRead
For the Baul, life is not a serious thing. It is fun, it is laughter, it is joy. So you cannot find anything like the seriousness of a church-goer, or the long faces of so-called religious people in the world of the Bauls. They love laughter, they love fun. They enjoy small things with tremendous respect. Ordinarily, religions are very long-faced, very sombre, serious, because they have to be - they are against life.
RajneeshRead
No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.
Samuel JohnsonRead
This non-proletarianised plebs has been racialist when it has been colonialist; it has been nationalist - chauvinist - when it has been armed; and it has been fascist when it has become the police force.These ideological effects on the plebs have been uncontestable and profound.
Michel FoucaultRead