Cioran and Sheeple (The Herd, the Prisoners, the Puppets etc)
Channel: Anekantavad
Date: 2015-04-04

Stages of Pride

  Frequenting the saints' madness, you happen to forget your limits, your chains, your burdens, and you exclaim: “I am the soul of the world; I color the universe with my flames. There will be no night from now on: I have prepared the eternal banquet of the stars; the sun is superfluous: everything shines, and the stones are lighter than angels' wings.”
  Then, between frenzy and contemplation: “If I am not this Soul, at least I aspire to be it. Have I not given my name to all things? Every object proclaims me, from the dungheaps to the vaults of heaven: am I not the silence and the din of things?”
  . . . and, at the lowest, the intoxication past: “I am the grave of sparks, the worms' mockery, a carrion importuning heaven, a carnival parody of the Beyond, a ci-devant Nothing without even the privilege of ever having rotted. What perfection of the abyss have I come to, that there is no space left for me to fall in?”