08.03.2024 E. M. Cioran on life

“Life, far from being what Bichat once called an ensemble of functions for resisting death, is rather an ensemble of functions for bearing us toward it. Our substance diminishes with every step, yet it is of this very diminution that all our efforts should tend to make a stimulant, a principle of efficacity. Those who cannot benefit from their possibilities of nonexistence are strangers to themselves: […]”

• E. M. Cioran, The Temptation to Exist, pg. 210, (emphasis added)