One cannot think and be modest. As soon as the mind sets in motion, it takes the place of God and everything else. It is indiscretion, encroachment, desecration. It does not work; it decays. The tension revealed by its approach proves brutality and relentlessness. Without a strong dose of cruelty, one could not complete a single thought. This confession of Cioran's - the confession to the destructiveness of the mind - could easily serve as a motto for the thoughts and aphorisms gathered here. Under Cioran's philosophical hammer, nothing remains intact. In a manner that sometimes recalls Nietzsche's and Georges Bataille's intellectual relentlessness, he injures and disturbs everything that we hold as high and sacred. Nothing remains in order; no stone stays in its seemingly rightful place. Everything is an illusion.