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
Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.
Norman BorlaugRead
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
James JoyceRead
Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.
Herman MelvilleRead
If you will give the matter a moment's thought, you'll see that memory is the highest faculty of the human mind.
Joseph PulitzerRead
Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Nothing, however, can be more arrogant, though nothing is commoner than to assume that of Gods there is only one, and of religions none but the speaker’s.
Virginia WoolfRead