E.M. Cioran (1911-1995),
On the Heights of Despair, tr. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 6:
I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations,
hopes and dreams. Wouldn't it
better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise
and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would
lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?
J'ignore totalement pourquoi il faut faire quelque
chose ici-bas, pourquoi il nous faut avoir des amis et des aspirations, des
espoirs et des rêves. Ne serait-il pas mille fois préférable de se retirer à
l'écart du monde, loin de tout ce qui fait son tumulte et ses complications?
Nous renoncerions ainsi à la culture et aux ambitions, nous perdrions tout
sans rien obtenir en échange. Mais que peut-on obtenir en ce monde?
Horace,
Epistles 1.11.7-10 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):
You know what Lebedus is—a town more desolate than Gabii and
Fidenae: yet there would I love to live,
and forgetting my friends and by them forgotten,
gaze from the land on Neptune's distant rage.
scis Lebedus quid sit? Gabiis desertior atque
Fidenis vicus; tamen illic vivere vellem,
oblitus meorum, obliviscendus et illis,
Neptunum procul e terra spectare furentem.