Sunday Morning with E.M. Cioran

"In order to conquer panic or some tenacious anxiety, there is nothing like imagining your own burial. An effective method, readily available to all. In order not to have to resort to it too often in the course of a day, best to experience its benefit straight off, when you get up. Or else use it only at exceptional moments, like Pope Innocent IX, who, having commissioned a painting in which he was shown on his deathbed, glanced at it each time he had to make some important decision."
-E.M. Cioran from The Trouble with Being Born

"The sole means of protecting your solitude is to offend everyone, beginning with those you love." -E.M. Cioran from The Trouble with Being Born, p. 99