Emil Cioran IX, & The Apotheosis of Groundlessness
Set IX of translations-variations of Emil Cioran’s untranslated notebooks, covering the period November 5 1963 — May 9 1964. Underneath which, some translations-variations from Lev Shestov’s The Apotheosis of Groundlessness.
Previously:
Cioran I / Cioran II, Chazal / Cioran III, Chazal II / Cioran IV / Cioran V / Cioran VI / Cioran VII, Shestov I / Cioran VIII, Shestov II
Thank you!
November 5 1963
A bachelor is not selfish; he merely doesn’t want to torture, or to be tortured by, anyone.
The basic premise of communal life is that when you feel bad, you can pass it on to someone else.
November 15, 1963
To talk of others is to admit to having nothing to say about yourself; if you exist, you should be able to say something about it, without having to drag another’s name through your emptiness.
Every successful heartbeat predates Christianity —
Life: grief’s equilibrium.
There is no true art without at least some — what am I saying! without a hefty dose of — banality.
How absurd to comment on a funeral! To compete for aphoristic effect with a funeral!
I fear disorder, violence, entrepreneurs, initiative, young people, the future… like every failure, I support the status quo.
It’s as ridiculous for poetry to become interested in music as it is for drama to become interested in stone.
Everyone who has a pleasant voice is mentally inadequate.
Of the five or six interesting people I’ve known, none had any talent beyond being interesting.
December 11 1963
To stay true, simply remain equidistant from enthusiasm and bitterness.
Thinking: why-fetish.
Advice to a friend: scream until you scare the angels.
December 24 1963
The divine maladjustment of Russians…