Q-Majin?: Cioran on the Poverty of Philosophy

Found a great epigraph for this blog--will update design accordingly in near future:

We do not argue the universe; we express it. And Philosophy does not express it. --E.M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay

Manna for Meditation

SOMEWHERE ON TELEVISION last night I heard that Jerusalem is a city with almost no natural resources—it is situated in a barren and unfruitful area. Remarkably appropriate. The narrator of the program even said, “If you want drinking water, go to Athens; if you want God, go to Jerusalem.” --the author of Q-Majin

A PHILOSOPHER IS saved from mediocrity either through skepticism or mysticism, the two forms of despair in front of knowledge. Mysticism is an escape from knowledge, and skepticism is knowledge without hope. In either instance, the world is not a solution. --E.M. Cioran, Tears and Saints

WITH A LITTLE more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike. In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident. The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present, nor future. --H.D. Thoreau, Walden

THOSE WHO KNOW don't tell and those who tell don't know. --Zen Proverb

THAT WHICH YOU worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you. --Christian Proverb

SOMEONE FLATTERS YOU, says how nice you are, how beautiful you are, how very intelligent. Or, how stupid you are. Now can you listen to what he's saying--that you are stupid or very clever or very this or very that? Can you listen without accumulation? That is, without accumulating the insult or the flattery? Because, if you listen with accumulation then he becomes your enemy or your friend. Therefore, that listening and how you listen creates the image. And that image separates. And that image is the cause of conflict. --J. Krishnamurti

Q-Majin?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Cioran on the Poverty of Philosophy

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