I have no idea if Chris Christie has read the work of the dour Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran. But these seven quotes were undoubtedly running through his head as he stood behind Donald Trump in Florida last night.
1. “As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?”
2. “True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.”
3. “We must learn how to explode! Any disease is healthier than the one provoked by a hoarded rage.”
4. “A great step forward was made the day men understood that in order to torment one another more efficiently they would have to gather together, to organize themselves into a society.”
5. “Having always lived in fear of being surprised by the worst, I have tried in every circumstance to get a head start, flinging myself into misfortune long before it occurred.”
6. “Nobody would dare look at himself in the mirror, because a grotesque, tragic image would mix in the contours of his face with stains and traces of blood, wounds which cannot be healed, and unstoppable streams of tears. I would experience a kind of voluptuous awe if I could see a volcano of blood, eruptions as red as fire and as burning as despair, burst into the midst of the comfortable and superficial harmony of everyday life, or if I could see all our hidden wounds open, making of us a bloody eruption forever. Only then would we truly understand and appreciate the advantage of loneliness, which silences our suffering and makes it inaccessible. The venom drawn out from suffering would be enough to poison the whole world in a bloody eruption, bursting out of the volcano of our being. There is so much venom, so much poison, in suffering!”
7. “It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”