Of all that was attempted this side of nothingness, is anything more pathetic than this world, except for the idea which conceived it? Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. The aims of reform and of pedagogy, articulated at the expense of irreducible data, denature thought and distort its movement.

Poetry is bastardized when it becomes permeable to prophecy or to doctrine: “mission” smothers music, idea shackles inspiration. In Rome, where they were replaced, imported, where they could be seen to wither, what pleasure to invoke ghosts with yet the one fear that this sublime versatility might capitulate to the assault of some severe and impure deity . Nathan Knapp of the Times Literary Supplement spoke positively of the sense of dread Cioran depicted within the book, and writing in 2019, said that "he is exactly the kind of thinker our present moment most richly deserves.But that is the point, maybe, he talks of suicide and that life itself is a waste, and yet he goes on living? Even when he turns from religion, man remains subject to it; depleting himself to create fake gods, he then feverishly adopts them: his need for fiction, for mythology triumphs over evidence and absurdity alike. Labor builds on nothingness, creates and consolidates myths; elementary intoxication, it excites and maintains the belief in “reality"; but contemplation of pure existence, contemplation independent of actions and objects, assimilates only what is not. Eugene Thacker is the author of several books, including In the Dust of This Planet (Zero Books, 2011) and Infinite Resignation (Repeater/PenguinRandomHouse, 2018).

When we carry germs of disappointments and a kind of thirst to see them develop, the desire that the world should undermine our hopes at each step multiplies the voluptuous verifications of the disease. What a downfall, when you bear in mind, by some radical obsession, that man exists, that he is what he is—and that he cannot be otherwise.

One lives as if he were eternal; the other thinks continually of his eternity and denies it in each thought. Emerging from the throng of the other living creatures, he has created a subtler confusion for himself; he has scrupulously exploited the ills of a life wrested from itself Out of all he has undertaken to be healed of himself, a stranger disease has been constituted:, his “civilization” is merely the effort to find remedies for an incurable—and coveted—state. When, having thought of everything, he thinks of himself—for he manages this only by the detour of the universe, as if he were the last problem he proposes to himself—he remains astonished, confused, embarrassed. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. Used books have different signs of use and might not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material.

Infatuated by syllables, it loathed the mystery of heavy silences and turned them light and pure; and it too has become light and pure, indeed lightened and purified of everything. There are something like material limits to our endurance; yet the expansion of each pang reaches and occasionally exceeds such limits: this is too often the source of our ruin.This is how the stain the soul spread over the mind has been removed-—the only thing which reminded it that it was alive. Whereas the animals proceed directly to their goal, man loses himself in detours; he is the indirect animal par excellence.

According to Cioran, although both countries have a long Christian tradition, irreligious populations in both countries act as foils to the idea of God, preservering its vitality and cultural relevance—which would be diminished in a more uniformly Christian population. Many dismissed it as overly morose and pessimistic, completely out of tune with the obligatory optimism of postwar European culture. Decay, decline, decadence—these are never popular topics, especially in an era such as ours, equally enamored with the explanatory power of science as we are with an almost religious preoccupation with self-help.Who, with the exact vision of his nullity, would try to be effective and to turn himself into a savior? Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. Every absolute—personal or abstract—is a way of avoiding the problems, and not only the problems but also their root, which is nothing but a panic of the senses.