I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.
Emil CioranRead
The capital phenomenon, the most catastrophic disaster, is uninterrupted sleeplessness, that nothingness without release.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the profound suffering caused by perpetual insomnia, likening it to a disaster of existence.
Emil Cioran poignantly expresses that the experience of constant sleeplessness is not merely a physical affliction, but a deep existential crisis that leads to a state of despair and a sense of nothingness. The quote underscores the psychological and emotional toll that unresolved sleeplessness can take on an individual, suggesting that it is one of the most severe forms of suffering one can endure.
In practice
In a discussion about mental health, one could refer to this quote to illustrate the severity of insomnia.
I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.
Isn't history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?
However much I have frequented the mystics, deep down I have always sided with the Devil; unable to equal him in power, I have tried to be worthy of him, at least, in insolence, acrimony, arbitrariness and caprice.
I saw that philosophy had no power to make my life more bearable. Thus I lost my belief in philosophy.
If, at the limit, you can rule without crime, you cannot do so without injustices.
There is no little sin, because no little God to sin against.
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.
Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!
No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.
Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.
The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy
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