Consider any human being who has caught your attention or roused your fervor: something in his mechanism has been unhinged to his advantage. We rightly scorn those who have not made use of their defects, who have not exploited their deficiencies, and have not been enriched by their losses, as we despise any man who does not suffer at being a man or simply at being. Hence no graver insult can be inflicted than to call someone “happy,” no greater flattery than to grant him a “vein of melancholy". . . . This is because gaiety is linked to no important action and because, except for the mad, no one laughs when he is alone.
Emil Cioran. "Advantages of Debility". A short history of decay.














