E.M. Cioran

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory.

No one could survive the instantaneous comprehension of universal grief, each heart being stirred only for a certain quantity of sufferings

The result is fanaticism—fundamental defect which gives man the craving for effectiveness, for prophecy, for terror—a lyrical leprosy by which he contaminates souls, subdues them, crushes or exalts them. . . . Only the skeptics (or idlers or aesthetes) escape, because they propose nothing, because they—humanity’s true benefactors—undermine fanaticism’s purposes, analyze its frenzy