Natsume Soseki Quotes

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Quotes About Natsume Soseki

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If whiskers establish sauciness, every cat is impudent. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I am a cat. As yet I have no name ~ Soseki Natsume
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There was a large crowd around us, and every face in it looked happy. We had little opportunity to talk until we reached the woods, where there were no flowers and no people. ~ Soseki Natsume
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How to adjust to a world in which the climax of a scene - and sometimes the central event - is going to sleep? We're going to have to adapt, maybe even invert our sense of priority and our assumptions about what constitutes drama, as most of us foreigners have to do when traveling to Japan. ~ Pico Iyer
Natsume Soseki quotes by Pico Iyer
And because I am an artist I find any passage of a novel interesting even when it is out of context. I find it interesting talking to you - so much so in fact that I'd like to talk to you every day while I'm here. I'll even fall in love with you if you'd like; that would be particularly interesting. But however deeply I were to fall in love with you it would not mean that we had to get married. If you think that marriage is the logical conclusion to falling in love, then it becomes necessary to read novels through from beginning to end. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Anyone without spiritual aspirations is a fool ~ Soseki Natsume
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I would guess that he thought and thought for at least ten years before he came up with a stupendous idea, that glory of man's inventiveness, pants. ~ Soseki Natsume
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The artist, even when he imitates nature, always feels himself to be not a slave but a demigod. ~ Soseki Natsume
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He seemed to become aware of a dark, imponderable force pushing him left when he meant to go right or pulling him back when he meant to go forward. Until that moment, he
would have felt certain that his actions had never been subject to restraint
by others. He had been certain that he did whatever he did of his own
accord, that everything he said he intended to say. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things. ~ Soseki Natsume
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When I think of it as happening to somebody else, it seems that the idea of me soaked to the skin, surrounded by countless driving streaks of silver, and moving through when I completely forget my material existence, and view myself from a purely objective standpoint, can I, as a figure in a painting, blend into the beautiful harmony of my natural surroundings. The moment, however, I feel annoyed because of the rain, or miserable because my legs are weary because of the rain, or miserable because my legs are weary with walking, then I have already ceased to be a character in a poem, or a figure in a painting, and I revert to the uncomprehending, insensitive man in the street I was before. I am then even blind to the elegance of the fleeting clouds; unable even to feel any bond of sympathy with a falling petal or the cry of a bird, much less appreciate the great beauty in the image of myself, completely alone, walking through the mountains in spring. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I will not hesitate to cast upon you the shadow thrown by the darkness of human life. But do not be afraid. Gaze steadfastly into this darkness, and find there the things that will be of use to you. ~ Soseki Natsume
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People really didn't change very much, he thought; they only decayed. ~ Soseki Natsume
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There are times when even I, a mere cat, can put two thoughts together. "Teachers have it easy. If you are born a human, it's best to become a teacher. For if it's possible to sleep this much and still to be a teacher, why, even a cat could teach" However, according to the master, there's nothing harder than a teacher's life... ~ Soseki Natsume
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Secretiveness is a most mysterious matter. However well one guards a secret, sooner or later it's bound to come out. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Every time I am shown to an old, dimly lit, and, I would add, impeccably clean toilet in a Nara or Kyoto temple, I am impressed with the singular virtues of Japanese architecture. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, 'a physiological delight' he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves. ~ Junichiro Tanizaki
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In Doya-sensei's view the world was a place to work for the sake of others; in Takayanagi's view the world was a place to work for his own sake. In a world where he lived for others, Doya felt no regret that no one offered a helping hand. In a world where he lived for himself, Takayanagi felt the world that cared nothing for him was cruel.

Such is the difference between one who exists for others and one who exists for himself. Such is the difference between one who leads others and one who relies on others. Such is the difference, even when both are solitary individuals. Takayanagi was not aware of these differences. ~ Soseki Natsume
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An artist is a person who lives in the triangle which remains after the angle which we may call common sense has been removed from this four-cornered world. ~ Soseki Natsume
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That K was hesitant in love does not mean that his love was in any sense lukewarm. He was unable to move, despite the violence of his emotion. And since the impact of his new emotion was not so great as to allow him to forget himself, he was forced to look back and remind himself of what his past had meant. And in doing so he could not but continue along the path that he had so far followed. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Knowing that it is the earth we tread, we learn to tread carefully, lest it be rent open. Realizing that it is the heavens that hang above us, we come to fear the echoing thunderbolt. The world demands that we battle with others for the sake of our own reputation, and so we undergo the sufferings bred of illusion. While we live in this world with its daily business, forced to walk the tightrope of profit and loss, true love is an empty thing, and the wealth before our eyes mere dust. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Miss Blanche, having given through her tears a complete account of this event, assured me that, to maintain our own parental love and enjoy our beautiful family life, we, the cat-race, must engage in total war upon all humans. We have no choice but to exterminate them. I think it is a very reasonable proposition. ~ Soseki Natsume
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It's like the frog that tried to outdo the cow...see, the consequences are reflected in each of us as individuals. A people so oppressed by the West have no mental leisure, they can't do anything worthwhile. They get an education that's stripped to the bare bone, and they're driven with their noses to the grindstone until they're dizzy -- that's why they all end up with nervous breakdowns. Try talking to them -- they're usually stupid. They haven't thought about a thing beyond themselves, that day, that very instant. They're too exhausted to think about anything else; it's not their fault. Unfortunately, exhaustion of the spirit and deterioration of the body come hand-in-hand. And that's not all. The decline of morality has set in too. Look where you will in this country, you won't find one square inch of brightness. It's all pitch black. So what difference would it make... ~ Soseki Natsume
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When someone in privileged circumstances gets a bit bewildered or stymied or maybe stumbles, the light he sees things in will change. But seeing things in a different light doesn't mean he's changed his vantage point. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Nobody can be angry and write a Hokku at the same time. Likewise, if you are crying, express your tears in seventeen syllables and you feel happy. No sooner are your thoughts down on paper, than all connection between you and the pain which caused you to cry is severed, and your only feeling is one of happiness that you are a man capable of shedding tears. ~ Soseki Natsume
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You must not speak ill of other persons. After all, everyone dies when their allotted span is over. ~ Soseki Natsume
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What this feeling produced was, quite simply, a keen awareness of the nature of human sin. That is what sent me back each month to K's grave. It is also what lay behind the nursing of my dying mother-in-law, and what bade me treat my wife so tenderly. There were even times when I longed for some stranger to come along and flog me as I deserved. At some stage this feeling transformed into a conviction that it should be I who hurt myself. And then the thought struck me that I should not just hurt myself but kill myself. At all events, I resolved that I must live my life as if I were already dead. ~ Soseki Natsume
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But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ideals? Perhaps - but this was still not quite it. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it was not the same unbearable loneliness that I now felt that had brought K to his decision. ~ Soseki Natsume
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From this observed behavior a major psychological truth about this race of forked destroyers may be deduced: that, just as nature abhors a vacuum, "mankind abhors equality." ~ Soseki Natsume
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There, sitting cross-legged on the floor, he stared absently at his legs. They began to look strange. They no longer seemed to grow from his trunk at all, but rather, completely unconnected, they sprawled rudely before him. When he got this far, he realized something he had never noticed before - that his legs were unbearably hideous. With hair growing unevenly and blue streaks running rampant, they were terribly strange creatures. ~ Soseki Natsume
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He framed a question inwardly to his vanity: 'Will this be tougher than I thought? ~ Soseki Natsume
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Knowing that it is the earth that we tread, we learn to tread carefully, lest it be rent open. Realizing that it is the heavens that hang above us, we come to fear the echoing thunderbolt. The world demands that we battle with others for the sake of our own reputation, and so we undergo the sufferings bred of illusion. While we live in this world with its daily business, forced to walk the tightrope of profit and loss, true love is an empty thing, and the wealth before our eyes mere dust. The reputation we grasp at, the glory that we seize, is surely like the honey that the cunning bee will seem sweetly to brew only to leave his sting within it as he flies. What we call pleasure in fact contains all suffering, since it arises from attachment. Only thanks to the existence of the poet and the painter are we able to imbibe the essence of this dualistic world, to taste the purity of its very bones and marrow. ~ Soseki Natsume
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There was a time when his father had looked like gold to him. Many of his seniors had looked like gold. Anybody who had attained a certain high level of education had looked like gold. Therefore, his own gold plating had been all the more painful, and he had been impatient to become solid gold himself. But once his keen eye penetrated directly to the inner layers of these other people, his efforts suddenly came to seem foolish. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Even the works of Shakespeare might be more thoroughly appreciated if they were re-examined from unorthodox positions. Someone, once in a while, should take a good long look at Hamlet through his legs. ~ Soseki Natsume
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It's only natural for the docile creature of yesteryear to become difficult today. That's just the way people are. You can try forcing someone to remember how he felt in winter and keep shivering after summer comes, but it won't happen. A person might not be able to eat when they're sick but nobody can make they give up food for the rest of their life... The trouble with people is they think they are solid as rock. ~ Soseki Natsume
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When he heard that Sanshiro was going to school forty hours a week, his eyes popped. "You idiot! Do you think it would 'satisfy' you to eat what they serve at your rooming house ten times a day?"
"What should I do?" Sanshiro pleaded.
"Ride the streetcar," Yojiro said.
Sanshiro tried to find Yojiro's hidden meaning, without success.
"You mean a real streetcar?" he asked.
Yojiro laughed uncontrollably. "Get on the streetcar and ride around Tokyo ten or fifteen times. After a while it will just happen by itself- you will become satisfied.
"Why?"
"Why? Well, look at it this way. Your head is alive, but if you seal it up inside dead classes, you're lost. Take it outside and get the wind into it. Riding the streetcar is not the only way to get satisfaction, of course, but it's the first step, and the easiest. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Until then I had floated at random, like a rootless aquatic plant, relying entirely on the opinions of others. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Our hearts parted a long time ago, and I was wrong to think they could be brought together again. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Your addiction to thinking will come back to haunt you. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I am an honest man by nature, but as I live in society I try not to arouse anyone's resentment and sometimes I am compelled to lie in this endeavour. As soon as honesty becomes compatible with daily social life, I will stop telling such lies. ~ Soseki Natsume
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The average novel invariably reads like a detective's report. It is drab and tedious because it is never objective. ~ Soseki Natsume
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From then on, my thesis hung over me like a curse, and with bloodshot eyes, I worked like a madman. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Did you not come to me because you felt there was something lacking?'
'Yes. But my going to you was not the same thing as wanting to fall in love. ~ Soseki Natsume
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It would seem that for my master a book is not a thing to be read, but a device to bring on slumber: a typographical sleeping-pill, a paginated security blanket. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Into the field of
Yellow flowers
The red setting sun! ~ Soseki Natsume
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As I see it, you're always unsteady on your legs. You can't find your courage. You'll go to any length to avoid what displeases you, and you gallop after whatever you want. And why is that? There is no why; it's because you're free to. You enjoy the luxury of picking and choosing because you have the latitude. You're never pushed into a tight corner as I am, so it never occurs to you to thumb your nose at the world. ~ Soseki Natsume
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How deep, how recondite this seeming petty heart,
In whose recesses right and wrong lie dimmed by distance. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I felt for her a love that was close to pious faith. You may find it odd that I use a specifically religious word to describe my feelings for a young woman, but real love, I firmly believe, is not so different from the religious impulse. Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful. ~ Soseki Natsume
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He saw the human shadows flitting through his second world. Most of them had unkempt beards. Some walked along looking at the sky, others at the ground. All wore shabby clothing. All lived in poverty. And all were serene. Closed in on every side by streetcars, they freely breathed the air of peace. The men in this world were unfortunate, for they knew nothing of the real world. But they were fortunate as well, for they had fled the Burning House of worldly suffering. Professor Hirota was in this second world. So, too, was Nonomiya. Sanshiro stood where he could understand the air of this world more or less. He could leave it whenever he wished. But to do so, to relinquish a taste he had finally begun to savor, was something he was loath to do. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Daisuke was of course equipped with conversation that, even if they went further, would allow him to retreat as if nothing had happened. He had always wondered at the conversations recorded in Western novels, for to him they were too bald, too self indulgent, and moreover, too unsubtly rich. However they read in the original, he thought they reflected a taste that could not be translated into Japanese. Therefore, he had not the slightest intention of using imported phrases to develop his relationship with Michiyo. Between the two of them at least, ordinary words sufficed perfectly well. But the danger was of slipping from point A to point B without realizing it. Daisuke managed to stand his ground only by a hair's breadth. When he left, Michiyo saw him to the entranceway and said, "Do come again, please? It's so lonely. ~ Soseki Natsume
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People forget their faces when they're busy. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Men works by preference, not by logic. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I tried instead to drown my soul in drink. I cannot say I like alcohol, but I am someone who can drink if I choose to, and I set about obliterating my heart by drinking all I could. This was a puerile way out, of course, and it very quickly led to an even greater despair with the world. In the midst of a drunken stupor, I would come to my senses and realize what an idiot I was to try to fool myself like this. Then my vision and understanding grew clear, and I sat shivering and sober. There were desolate times when even the poor disguise of drunkenness failed to work, no matter how I drank. And each time I sought pleasure in drink, I emerged more depressed than ever. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Thus, as I review the list of my friends and acquaintances, most of them emerge as stained with maniac stigmata of one sort or another. I begin to feel considerably reassured. The truth may simply be that human society is no more than a massing of lunatics. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Under the sun the couple presented smiles to the world. Under the moon, they were lost in thought: and so they had quietly passed the years. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Just as you can only really smell incense in the first moments after it is lit, or taste wine in that instant of the first sip, the impulse of love springs from a single, perilous moment in time, I feel. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I thought of the new stone, of my new wife, and of the newly buried white bones beneath us, and I felt that fate had made sport of us all. ~ Soseki Natsume
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If he let one day pass without glancing at a single page, habit led him to feel a vague sense of decay. Therefore, in the face of most intrusions, he tried to arrange it so that he could stay in touch with the printed word. There were moments when he felt that books constituted his only legitimate province. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Some say that life has no form, that it is extremely diffuse. I think I can agree with them ... A life without conclusions is painful. ~ Soseki Natsume
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The prime fact is that all humans are puffed up by their extreme self-satisfaction with their own brute power. Unless some creatures more powerful than humans arrive on earth to bully them, there's just no knowing to what dire lengths their fool presumptuousness will eventually carry them. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Saku's figure before me looked like a morning glory drawn with one stroke of the brush. My only regret was that the drawing was not by the hand of a master. ~ Soseki Natsume
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The trouble with women is that they talk too much. It would be good if human beings would keep as silent as this cat. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Anyone who sang the praises of undying love in this day and age belonged to the first rank of hypocrites in Daisuke's estimate. ~ Soseki Natsume
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There you are. It's what I've been saying all along. You have too much latitude. And that makes you extravagant. The result is, the minute you acquire something you like, you want the next thing. But when something you like gets away, you stamp your feet in chagrin."

"When have I ever behaved that way?"

"Believe me, you have. You're behaving that way now. It's the price you pay for your latitude. And it's what gives me the keenest pleasure. It's the Karma principle, poverty taking its revenge on affluence. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Hirota feels strongly drawn toward nature and the natural, is hyper-sensitive to the artificial - particularly that most cramped and constraining man-made creation, society - and does his best to avoid it. ~ Soseki Natsume
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My hand may slip from lack of practice, but I do not believe my clumsy writing derives from an agitated mind. ~ Soseki Natsume
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But do you imagine there's a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a 'bad person'? You'll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole, all people are good, or at least they're normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch. That's why you have to be careful. ~ Soseki Natsume
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It is a much wiser policy to plant acre after acre of orchids and lead one's life in solitude encompassed by their sheltering stems, than to surround oneself with the hoi polloi and so court the same pointless misanthropic disgust as befell Timon of Athens. Society is forever holding forth about fairness and justice. If it really believes these to be of such importance, it might do well to kill off a few dozen petty criminals per day, and use their carcasses to fertilize and give life to countless fields of flowers. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I don't like argumentation. You men do it a lot, don't you? You seem to enjoy it. I'm always amazed at how men can go on and on, happily passing around the empty cup of some futile discussion ~ Soseki Natsume
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Admittedly, there's a certain coarseness about [businessmen]; for there's no point in even trying to be [one] unless your love for money is so absolute that you're ready to accompany it on the walk to a double suicide. For money, believe you me, is a hard mistress, and none of her lovers are let off lightly. As a matter of fact, I've just been visiting a businessman and, according to him, the only way to succeed is to practice the "triangled" technique: try to escape your obligations, annihilate your kindly feelings, and geld yourself of the sense of shame. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Where joy grows deep, sorrow must deepen; the greater one's pleasures, the greater the pain. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Novelists congratulate themselves on their creation of this kind of "character" or that kind of "character," and readers pretend to talk knowingly about "character," but all it amounts to is that the writers are enjoying themselves writing lies and the readers are enjoying themselves reading lies. In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don't know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying. ~ Soseki Natsume
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I am grabbed by the scruff of the neck and pitched clean out of the room. It seems that this sudden aversion stems from human disgust with those barely visible and totally insignificant insects which I harbor. A heartless and most callous attitude! How can such inconsiderate behavior possibly be justified by the presence in my coat of one or two thousand footling fleas? The answer is, of course, that Article One of those Laws of Love (by which all humans creatures regulate their lives) specifically enjoins that «ye shall love one another for so long as it serves thine individual interest.» ~ Natsume Sōseki
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I'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. ~ Soseki Natsume
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His grin seemed to say, "It is, for some strange reason, considered proper to congratulate people on such occasions as this. ~ Soseki Natsume
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But to my questions he gave replies so vague that one could not tell whether they came from the mountains or the sea. ~ Soseki Natsume
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Why haven't you changed?' and she said, 'Because the year I had this face, the month I wore these clothes, and the day I had my hair like this is my favourite time of all.' 'What time is that?' I asked her. 'The day we met twenty years ago,' she said. I wondered to myself, 'Then why have I aged like this?' and she told me, 'Because you wanted to go on changing, moving towards something more and more beautiful. ~ Soseki Natsume
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how every character is effectively a tiny figure in a suffocating world of associations and obligations; where many an American novel might send its protagonist out into the world to make his own destiny, in Sōsuke's Japan he cannot move for all his competing (and unmeetable) responsibilities to his aunt, his younger brother, his wife, and society itself. ~ Pico Iyer
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If the Creator should take the line that I am born to work and not to sleep, I would agree that I am indeed born to work but I would also make the unanswerable point that I cannot work unless I also rest. ~ Soseki Natsume
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But sick or well, humans are fragile creatures, you know. There's no anticipating how or when they might die, or for what reason ~ Soseki Natsume
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The plain fact is that humans, one and all, are merely thieves at heart. ~ Soseki Natsume
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There in the mountains, close to the delights of Nature, everything you see and hear is a joy. It is a joy unspoiled by any real discomfort. Your legs may possibly ache, or you may feel the lack of something really good to eat, but that is all. I wonder why this should be? I suppose the reason is that, looking at the landscape, it is as though you were looking at a picture unrolled before you, or reading a poem on a scroll. The whole area is yours [...]. You are free from any care or worry because you accept the fact that this scenery will help neither to fill your belly, nor add a penny to your salary, and are content to enjoy it just as scenery. This is the great charm of Nature, that it can in an instant discipline men's hearts and minds, and removing all that is base, lead them into the pure unsullied world of poetry. ~ Soseki Natsume
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London is a city that offers all kinds of temptations, and whenever I go for a walk I discover things that I would like to bring back as souvenirs. But my resources are very limited. I cannot buy anything, and I make a point of taking my walks a good distance from these riches. ~ Soseki Natsume
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This reticence has little to do with trying to protect oneself and everything to do with trying to protect others from one's problems, which shouldn't be theirs; it's one reason Japan is so confounding to foreigners, as its people faultlessly sparkle and attend to one another in in public, while often seeming passive and unconvinced of their ability to do anything decisive at home. ~ Pico Iyer
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I am not as hard as I seem. For the right person, I too could shed a few tears. ~ Soseki Natsume
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What would you do," I said, "if I pushed you into the sea?" K did not move. Without looking back, he said: "That would be pleasant. Please do. ~ Natsume Sōseki
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When a garden is used as a place to pause for thought, that is when a Zen garden comes to life. When you contemplate a garden like this it will form as lasting impression on your heart. ~ Muso Soseki
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When they encounter somebody who's honest and pure-hearted, they look down on him and say he's nothing but a kid , a botchan. ~ Natsume Sōseki
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Over the wintry

forest, winds howl in rage

with no leaves to blow. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself ― not to Japan, not to anything. You may think that what you're doing is for the sake of the nation, but let something take possession of you like that, and all you do is bring it down. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
Within Young Leaves Wrapped within young leaves: the sound of water. - SOSEKI This delicate observation by this Japanese poet is filled with the quiet hope that embedded in our nature, even as we begin, is our gift already unfolded. Embedded in the seed is the blossom. Embedded in the womb is the child fully grown. Embedded in the impulse to care is the peace of love realized. Embedded in the edge of risk and fear is the authenticity that makes life worth living. ~ Mark Nepo
Natsume Soseki quotes by Mark Nepo
In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don't know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying. But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, presuming that other people are a mess just because I'm put together in such a disorderly way. If so, I should apologize. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
Who are we to judge the needs of another man's heart? ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
Sōsuke had never claimed to be the kind of strong man who could be felled only by an abrupt, totally unforeseeable event such as this. He had no doubt that far gentler methods would have been sufficient to dispose of a weakling like himself. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
Ive told you before and my feelings haven't changed. I love you Sakura. Even if I cant match up to Natsume, my feelings would not lose to his. Even if we part ways and you forget about me, I will always think of you. Even if I grow old and leave this academy, I will definitely come see you. I'm here for you, until the day you look my way, I will always ... I will always wait for you, together with Natsume. And this time around, I wont let Natsume steal you away again. Next time we meet, I will be more straight forward with my feelings, so that this time around, it wont be Natsume, but me you will choose, and me you will love. I wont lose, definitely. - Ruka ~ Tachibana Higuchi
Natsume Soseki quotes by Tachibana Higuchi
Some of the gardeners, Nanao said, worked according to the precepts of Muso Soseki, others according to other Japanese Zen masters; others still to Fu Hsi, the legendary inventor of the Chinese system of geomancy called feng shui; others to Persian gardening gurus, including Omar Khayyam; or to Leopold or Jackson, or other early American ecologists, like the nearly forgotten biologist Oskar Schnelling; and so on. These ~ Kim Stanley Robinson
Natsume Soseki quotes by Kim Stanley Robinson
It had become a habit with him lately to listen to his heart's pulsation while lying in bed. As usual, the palpitation was calm and steady. With his hand still on his chest, he tried to imagine the warm, crimson blood flowing leisurely to this beat. This was life, he thought. Now, at this very moment, he held in his grasp the current of life as it flowed by. To his palm it felt like the ticking of a clock. But it was more, it was a kind of alarm that summoned him to death. If it were possible to live without hearing this bell--if only his heart did not measure out time as well as blood--then how carefree he would be! How thoroughly he would savor life! But--and here Daisuke shuddered involuntarily. He was a man so attached to life that he could scarcely bear to picture his heart calmly beating to the coursing of his blood. There were times when, lying in bed, he would place his hand just below his left breast and wonder, what if someone gave me one good blow with a hammer here. Although he lived in sound health, there were instances when his consciousness awakened to the indisputable fact of his being alive as a near-miracle of good fortune. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
The skinny Doya-sensei, in his cotton clothing, appeared on stage. He had braved the elements, walking as straight as a needle. Exposed to the dry wind, he looked like an old withered gourd. The sound of hands clapping filled the air. The clapping of hands is not necessarily the same as applause. Takayanagi alone sat silently and adjusted his collar.

"Man is a link between the past and the future."

Doya-sensei began abruptly. The audience was taken by surprise. No one started his lecture this way.

"Those who carry over the past into the future are called conservative; those who save the future from the past are called progressive."

The audience was more puzzled than before. Among the audience of three hundred were those who came to jeer Doya-sensei. Like sumo wrestlers in a ring, they watched for a chance to take advantage of their opponent. They were poised like a snake ready to strike. In Doya-sensei's vision there was nothing but the Way.

"If you say you have no past in yourself, you may as well say you have no parents. If you say you have no future in yourself, you may as well say you have no capacity to beget children. One's standpoint should be clear from this. Either to live for your parents, to live for your children, or to live for yourself: your mission in life can be only one of these three alternatives. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
I am an inconsistent creature. Perhaps it is the pressure of my past, and not my own perverse mind, that has made me into this contradictory being. I am all too well aware of this fault in myself. You must forgive me. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
Sometimes when I can no longer endure the strain, I beg him to tell me what is wrong with me and help me to correct it. Then he always says that I have nothing to correct, assuring me that it is he who is at fault. And I become sadder and sadder until I weep with the desire to know my fault. ~ Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki quotes by Natsume Sōseki
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