Tears and Saints
Emil M. Cioran
Top 10 Best Quotes
“I cannot differentiate between tears and music' (Nietzsche). Whoever is not immediately struck by the profundity of this statement has not lived for a minute in the intimacy of music. I know no other music than that of tears. Born out of the loss of paradise, music gives birth to the symbols of this loss: tears.”
“When I think of all the agonies on this earth, I know there are souls which could not be lifted by cohorts of angels, so heavy they will not be able to rise at the Last Judgement, frozen in the barenness of their own curses. Only light souls can be saved: those whose weight will not break the wings of angels.”
“There are tears which pierce through the earth and rise as stars in other skies. I wonder who has wept our stars?”
“There are hearts into which even God cannot look without losing his innocence.”
“The empire of the sky occupies territory emptied of vitality. Heavenly imperialism aims at biological neutrality. How does music suck our blood? Man cannot live without support in space. But music annihilates space completely. The only art capable of bringing comfort, yet it opens up more wounds than all the others! Music is the sound track of askesis. Could one make love after Bach? Not even after Handel, whose unearthliness does not have a heavenly perfume. Music is a tomb of delights, beatitude which buries us. Saintliness also draws blood. We lose it in direct proportion to our longing for heaven. The roads to heaven have been worn smooth by all the erring instincts. Indeed, heaven was born of these errors.”
“Paganism is the deepening of appearances, while saintliness is the sickness of depths.”
“No mental state is less creative than mild sadness, the very negation of inspiration. Everything depends on the level of sadness, on the frequency of its vibrations. At a certain level it is poetical, at another musical, and finally religious. Thus there are different kinds of sadness: of poets, of musicians, of saints. The sadness of poets or musicians leaves their heart, goes around the world, and returns like an echo. The sadness of saints also leaves the heart but it stops in God, thus fulfilling every saint's secret wish, to become his prisoner.”
“It may very well be tht man's sole purpose is none other than to think of god. If we could either love him or ignore him we would be saved.”
“What shall we tell the blind woman in Rilke's poem who lamented that 'I can no longer live with the sky upon me'? Would it comfort her if we told her we can no longer live with the earth underneath our feet?”
“The roads to heaven have been worn smooth by all the erring instincts. Indeed, heaven was born of these errors.”
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Book Keywords:
tears, pessimism, stars, god, depth, existentialism, nietzsche, sadness, existence, music, saintliness, innocence, philosophy, darkness, paganism, art, saints
