Osamu Dazai Quotes

What is society but an individual? [...] The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.

4907

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.

2176

I drink out of desperation. Life is too dreary to endure. The misery, loneliness, crampedness - they're heartbreaking.[...] What feelings do you suppose a man has when he realizes that he will never know happiness or glory as long as he lives? Hard work. All that amounts to is food for the wild beasts of hunger.

3879

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.

4069

He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost.

1521

In spite of my suffering, at the thought that I was sure to end up by killing myself, I cried aloud and burst into tears.

4287

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.

4175

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.

3174

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.

2190

For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces.

3084

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.

4354

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

1683

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.

2623

Scoundrels [...] simply don't die. The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people. [...] Scoundrels live a long time. The beautiful die young.

3578

Last year nothing happened
The year before nothing happened
And the year before that nothing
happened.

4776

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.

3184

It isn't that I dislike artists, but I can't stand anyone who puts on those ponderous airs of a man of character.

4440

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.

4907

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.

4436

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.

1431

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

4489

If my neighbors manage to survive without killing themselves, without going mad, maintaining an interest in political parties, not yielding to despair, resolutely pursuing the fight for existence, can their griefs really be genuine?

4818

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

1327

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!

3458

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

4676

Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relations between Horiki and myself were undoubtedly those of friendship.

3329

I despised him as one fit only for amusement, a man with whom I associated for that sole purpose.

1640

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

1625

[...] Just because a person has a title doesn't make him an aristocrat. Some people are great aristocrats who have no other title than the one that nature has bestowed on them, and others like us, who have nothing but titles, are closer to being pariahs than aristocrats.

1304

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.

4597