The Book of Delusions

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

—Ambrose Bierce

Cioran (pronounced TCHAW-rahn) was 25 in 1936 when he wrote his second book, The Book of Delusions (Cartea Amăgirilor). If one looks at the grown body of criticism on Cioran, or early or subsequent reviews of his work, one notices that one of the things that critics emphasize is the fact that Cioran, in his youth, although as pessimistic as he ever remained, was more of a mystic, or an existential philosopher, than he was a writer of fragments as such. These comments are often made almost as a way of making up excuses for Cioranʼs early writings, which, in places, can border on the non-sensical. What critics seem to suggest almost rhetorically is that Cioran, who has now almost become a cult figure and one of the finest Romanian/French canonized writers, cannot possibly talk nonsense, can he? (Moraru, 2006; Rogozanu, 2002)

THE BOOK OF DELUSIONS (On top bar as well.)

“A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.”

Here is a site with more about this honest thinker.

Have some lentils with Ambrose Bierce, as well, the man who couldn’t help but to utter things like: “Faith is belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” He also wrote a dictionary with such entries as: CYNIC n. A blackguard whose faulty vision causes him to see things as they are, not as they ought to be. (See my page, above, The Devil’s Dictionary.)

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