Emil Cioran Quotes

There is good and there is bad in every human heart, and it is the struggle of life to conquer the bad with the good.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

I always admired virtue - but I could never imitate it.

We may not have demon fathers dangling offers of infernal power before us, but everyone understands what it means to struggle with temptation or resist the urge to give in to our baser natures.

Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake?

The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

Evil things are easy things: for they are natural to our fallen nature. Right things are rare flowers that need cultivation.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time ignoring his fundamental ones.

He who overcomes himself is divine. Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.

I really wanted to be nasty and mean and bad. It's so much easier than being the good girl.

It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.

Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it.

Terrible is the fight put up by the senses. Fight bravely! Conquer them you must.

You oughtn't to yield to temptation. Well, somebody must, or the thing becomes absurd.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy.

Virtue is a positive quality developed by taking a firm stand for the right in temptation, or by the suffering endured in consequence of wrongdoing.

It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.