Cioran on solitude

Only what has been conceived in solitude, face to facewith God, endures—whether one is a believer or not.

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What right have we to be annoyed by someone who calls us a monster? The monster Is unique by definition, and solitude, even the solitude of infamy, supposes something positive, a peculiar election, but undeniably an election.

*

Once the shutters are closed, I stretch out in the dark.
The outer world, a fading murmur, dissolves. All that is left is myself and … there’s the rub. Hermits have spent their lives in dialogue with what was most hidden within them. If only, following their example, I could give myself up to that extreme exercise, in which one unites with the intimacy of one’s own being! It is this self-interview, this inward transition which matters, and which has no value unless continually renewed, so that the self is finally absorbed by its essential version.

*

Walking in a forest between two hedges of ferns transfigured by autumn—that is a triumph. What are ovations and applause beside it?

*

A broadcast about wolves, with recordings of their howls.
What a language! The most heartrending I know, and I shall never forget it. From now on, in moments of excessive solitude, I need merely recall those sounds to have the sense of belonging to a community.

*
Solitude: so fulfilling that the merest rendezvous is a crucifixion.

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After fifteen years of absolute solitude, Saint Seraphinus of Sarow would exclaim, in the presence of any visitor at all, “O my joy!” Who, continually rubbing up against his kind, would be so extravagant as to greet them thus?”

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Those nights when you convince yourself that everyone has evacuated this universe, even the dead, and that you are the last living being here, the last ghost.