All truths are against us. But we go on living, because we accept them in themselves, because we refuse to draw the consequences. Where is the man who has translated - in his behavior - a single conclusion of the lessons of astronomy, of biology, and who has decided to never leave his bed again out of rebellion or humility in the face of the sidereal distances or the natural phenomena? Has pride ever been conquered by the evidence of our unreality? And who was ever bold enough to do nothing because every action is senseless in infinity? The sciences prove our nothingness. But who has grasped their ultimate teachings? Who has become a hero of total sloth? No one folds his arms: we are busier than the ants and the bees. Yet if an ant, if a bee - by the miracle of an idea or by some temptation of singularity - were to isolate herself in the anthill or the hive, if she contemplated FROM OUTSIDE the spectacle of her labors,would she still persist in her pains?
- E.M. Cioran