43 Quotes & Sayings By Osamu Dazai

I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another. Osamu Dazai

All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know. Osamu Dazai

I have no desire for others to take it on themselves to analyze my thoughts. I am without thoughts. I have never, not even once, acted on the basis of any doctrine or philosophy. I am convinced that those people whom the world considers good and respects are all liars and fakes. I do not trust the world. Osamu Dazai

When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn't write a novel, people said I couldn't write. When I acted like a liar, they called me a liar. When I acted like a rich man, they started the rumor I was rich. When I feigned indifference, they classed me as the indifferent type. But when I inadvertently groaned because I was really in pain, they started the rumor that I was faking suffering. The world is out of joint. Osamu Dazai

Why can’t people get along without criticizing one another?” Urashima shakes his head as he ponders this rudimentary question. “Never have the bush clover blooming on the beach, nor the little crabs who skitter o’er the sand, nor the wild geese resting their wings in yonder cove found fault with me. Would that human beings too were thus! Each individual has his own way of living. Can we not learn to respect one another’s chosen way? One makes every effort to live in a dignified and proper manner, without harming anyone else, yet people will carp and cavil and try to tear one down. It’s most vexing. Osamu Dazai

The wound has gradually become dearer to me than my own flesh and blood, and I have thought its pain to be the emotion of the wound as it lived or even its murmur of affection Osamu Dazai

For the first time in my life I realized what a horrible, miserable, salvationless hell it is to be without money. Osamu Dazai

Even if Mary gives birth to a child who is not her husband's, if she has a shining pride, they become a holy mother and child. Osamu Dazai

Society. I felt as though even I were beginning at last to acquire some vague notion of what it meant. It is a struggle between one individual to another, a then-and-there struggle, in which the immediate triumph is everything. ‘Human beings never submit to human beings.’ Even slaves practice their mean retaliations. Human beings cannot conceive of any means of survival except of a single then-and-there contest. They speak of duty to one’s country and such like things, but the object of their effort is invariably the individual, and, even once the individual’s needs have been met, again the individual comes in. The incomprehensibility of society is the incomprehensibility of the individual. The ocean is not society; it is individuals. Osamu Dazai

After being hurt by the world so much, they began to see the demons within humans. So without hiding it through trickery, they worked to express it. Osamu Dazai

Anyway, you can be sure of one thing, a man's got to fake just to stay alive. Osamu Dazai

I would far prefer to be told simply to go and die. It's straightforward. But people almost never say, "Die! " Paltry, prudent hypocrites! Osamu Dazai

I wonder if there is anyone who is not depraved. A wearisome thought. I want money. Unless I have it.... In my sleep, a natural death! Osamu Dazai

Humanity? Don't be silly. I know. It is knocking down your fellow-men for the sake of your own happiness. Osamu Dazai

At times everything grows misty and dark before my eyes, and I feel that the strength of my whole body is oozing away through my finger tips. Osamu Dazai

I am afraid because I can so clearly foresee my own life rotting away of itself, like a leaf that rots without falling, while I pursue my round of existence from day to day. Osamu Dazai

It is painful for the plant which is myself to live in the atmosphere and light of this world. Somewhere an element is lacking which would permit me to continue. Osamu Dazai

In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions altogether occupy a bare one per cent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine per cent is just living in waiting. Osamu Dazai

The courageous testimony of Dr. Faust that a maiden's smile is more precious than history, philosophy, education, religion, law, politics, economics, and all the other branches of learning. Learning is another name for vanity. It is the effort of human beings not to be human beings. Osamu Dazai

Any connoisseur knows you've got to be drunk to really enjoy a good romance. Osamu Dazai

I wonder if I have ever actually been happy. People have told me, really more times than I can remember, ever since I was a small boy, how lucky I was, but I have always felt as if I were suffering in hell. It has seemed to me in fact that those who called me lucky were incomparably more fortunate than I. Osamu Dazai

Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy. Osamu Dazai

I have sometimes thought that I have been burdened with a pack of ten misfortunes, any one of which if borne by my neighbor would be enough to make a murderer out of him. Osamu Dazai

And I was incapable of living all by myself in those lodgings where I didn't know a soul. It terrified me to sit by myself quietly in my room. I felt frightened, as if I might be set upon or struck by someone at any moment. Osamu Dazai

Show me what you've written, " I said, although I wanted desperately to avoid looking at it. Osamu Dazai

I yearned for everything long gone. Osamu Dazai

I go about saying how pained and tormented, how lonely and sad I feel, but what do I really mean by that? If I were to speak the truth, I would die. Osamu Dazai

I felt as though the vessel if my suffering had become empty, as if nothing could interest me now. I had lost even the ability to suffer. Osamu Dazai

Any man who criticizes my suicide and passes judgment on me with an expression of superiority, declaring (without offering the least help) that I should have gone on living my full complement of days, is assuredly a prodigy among men quite capable of tranquilly urging the Emperor to open a fruit shop. Osamu Dazai

I am sure that the reason why I wept and stormed as if I had gone off my head was that the combination of physical exhaustion and my unhappiness had made me hate and resent everything. Osamu Dazai

I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied. Most of all I dreaded paying a bill-my awkwardness when I handed over the money after buying something did not arise from my stinginess, but from excessive tension, excessive embarrassment, excessive uneasiness and apprehension. Osamu Dazai

Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarly, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody. Osamu Dazai

To break free from this vexatious and awful never-ending cycle, this flood of outrageous thoughts, and to long for nothing more than simply to sleep--how clean, how pure, the mere thought of it is exhilarating. Osamu Dazai

It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling. Osamu Dazai

When you find yourself looking ridiculous, reasoning isn't worth a damn. Osamu Dazai

I must go on living. And, though itmay be childish of me, I can't go on insimple compliance. From now on I muststruggle with the world. I thought that Mother might well be the last of thosewho can end their lives beautifully andsadly, struggling with no one, neitherhating nor betraying anyone. In theworld to come there will be no room forsuch people. The dying are beautiful, but to live, to survive — those thingssomehow seem hideous andcontaminated with blood. Osamu Dazai