# Quote — Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay

> Scaffolds, dungeons, jails flourish only in the shadow of a faith — of that need to believe which has infested the mind forever. The devil pales beside the man who owns a truth, his truth. We are unfair to a Nero, a Tiberius: it was not they who invented the concept heretic: they were only degenerate dreamers who happened to be entertained by massacres. The real criminals are men who establish an orthodoxy on the religious or political level, men who distinguish between the faithful and the schismatic.

- Author: [Emil Cioran](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran.md)
- Book: [A Short History of Decay](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran#A_Short_History_of_Decay_(1949)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay/scaffolds-dungeons-jails

## More from this book

> So long as man is protected by madness he functions and flourishes, but when he frees himself from the fruitful tyranny of fixed ideas, he is lost, ruined.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay/so-long-as-man.md)

> I find in myself as much evil as in anyone, but detesting action — mother of all vices — I am the cause of no one's suffering.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay/i-find-in-myself.md)

> Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/emil-cioran/a-short-history-of-decay/man-starts-over.md)