Emil Cioran Quotes

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

In my own pursuit of God, I often became preoccupied with ME! It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weakness was humility. It’s not! If I’m the main subject, talking incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride.

The more I thought to myself, 'Are my thoughts right, am I being obedient enough?' the worse it was... one of the most painful things you can experience in life is not so much physical pain, but being self-occupied. Because to the extent you are self-occupied, that's the extent you will be in pain.

Every true passion thinks only of itself.

If I were a chocolate I'd eat myself. Seriously, we're all interested in ourselves and what other people are saying about us to some extent.

My vanity and narcissism will never let me go too far.

I'd like to lose interest in myself.

It's no wonder human beings are so narcissistic. The way our ears are constructed, we can hear only what is right next to us or else the internal monologue inside.

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you and what people think of you.

PERSONAL IMPORTANCE or taking things personally, is an expression of SELFISHNESS because we make the assumption that everything is about ME!! NOTHING PEOPLE DO IS BECAUSE OF YOU!! IT'S BECAUSE OF THEMSELVES!!

By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible.

I don't dream about anyone - except myself

The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.

You’re a human, you should understand self-obsession.

Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me from pouring myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and delighting in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker Percy describes boredom as "the self stuffed with the self."

All is egotism. The only people whose mainspring is not egotism are the dead and perhaps idiots.

The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.

I am subject to very powerful lows. When you have highs, you have terrible lows. When you pinpoint that you are responsible for everything that happens to you, it is very frightening.

I find a lot of poetry to be narcissistic.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

I was deaf and dumb and blind to all but me, myself and I.

I'm the one who has to look in the mirror, and after a while it begins to eat at you.

All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.

'The Portrait of Dorian Grey' beautifully articulates how the altruistic part of ourselves clashes with our essentially narcissistic state.