Everything must have been once. That’s why life seems to me like a ghostly undulation. History does not repeat itself; yet it seems as if our lives are caught in the reflections of a past world, whose delayed echoes we prolong. Memory is an argument not only against time but also against this world. It half uncovers the probable worlds of the past, crowning them with a vision of paradise. Regrets spring from the nadir of memory. Regression of memory makes one a metaphysician; delight in its origins, a saint.
E.M. Cioran, Tears and Saints (via touba)
Hermetic Rambling 