..."Cioran cannot be read literally, or else you will blow your brains out. That is something he himself did not do, what shows us he was aware of the dose of irony in his writings (he used to say he was a fraud and that people would see that if they understood him). Cioran takes the stand in the name of the devil, prosecutor of humanity, and defies us to take charge of the defense. Playing among patent truths and truthlike exaggeration, he always leaves us an opening for salvation, and it is precisely in these hiatuses, in these calculated failings inside his argument, that lies the most intelligent part of his work, in truth more pedagogic or psycho-therapeutic than philosophical. Cioran can induce you to despair, to stoic resignation, or to resuming faith and hope. He can be poison or medication: it is up to you to decide."...Philosophy is not for the timid
Interview of Olavo de Carvalho to Zora Seljan
Translated by Assunção Medeiros
