Osamu Dazai Quotes

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Desire Feelings Liars Suffering Waiting

Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.Everything passes.That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.Everything passes.

Osamu Dazai

Burning, Hell, Unhappiness

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.169, New Directions Publishing

123 Copy quote
What uneasiness lies in being loved.

Osamu Dazai

Lying, Uneasiness, Being Loved

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.47, New Directions Publishing

119 Copy quote
As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.

Osamu Dazai

Eye, Wind, Sky

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.13, New Directions Publishing

103 Copy quote
I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.

Osamu Dazai

People, Rose, Four Seasons

Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.43, New Directions Publishing

89 Copy quote
I thought, “I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There’s no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it’s sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.

Osamu Dazai

Summer, Dream, Recovery

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.163, New Directions Publishing

145 Copy quote
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.

Osamu Dazai

Expression, People, Broken

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.55, New Directions Publishing

108 Copy quote
Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.

Osamu Dazai

Live Life, Shame, Humans

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.21, New Directions Publishing

84 Copy quote
Addiction is perhaps a sickness of the spirit.

Osamu Dazai

Addiction, Spirit, Sickness

Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.77, New Directions Publishing

74 Copy quote
The weak fear happiness itself.

Osamu Dazai

Weak

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

33 Copy quote
Now even if I die, no one will be so grieved as to do himself bodily harm.

Osamu Dazai

Believe, Sadness, Thinking

"The Setting Sun".

93 Copy quote
The real things are apt to be deviant.

Osamu Dazai

Real, Deviants, Real Things

Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.6, New Directions Publishing

29 Copy quote
But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.

Osamu Dazai

Believe, World, Able

Osamu Dazai (2013). “Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu”, p.20, BookBaby

84 Copy quote
Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.

Osamu Dazai

Differences, Mind, Firsts

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.30, New Directions Publishing

47 Copy quote
I want to spend my time with people who don't look to be respected. But such good people won't want to spend their time with me.

Osamu Dazai

People, Looks, Want

Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.66, New Directions Publishing

58 Copy quote
The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness

Osamu Dazai

Wool, Cotton, Sometimes

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

98 Copy quote
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

Pain, Liars, Writing

135 Copy quote
What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?

Osamu Dazai

Mean, Humans, Human Beings

40 Copy quote
A true artist is an ugly man.

Osamu Dazai

Artist, Men, Ugly

94 Copy quote
Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for a morality which human beings arbitrarily devised.

Osamu Dazai

Vices, Morality, Virtue

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.145, New Directions Publishing

43 Copy quote
As for love . . . no, having once written that word I can write nothing more.

Osamu Dazai

Writing, Written, I Can

Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.28, New Directions Publishing

34 Copy quote
People talk of “social outcasts.” The words apparently denote the miserable losers of the world, the vicious ones, but I feel as though I have been a “social outcast” from the moment I was born. If ever I meet someone society has designated as an outcast, I invariably feel affection for him, an emotion which carries me away in melting tenderness.

Osamu Dazai

People, Melting, World

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.67, New Directions Publishing

24 Copy quote
The world, after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.

Osamu Dazai

Mean, Simple, Simplicity

28 Copy quote
I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.

Osamu Dazai

Agony, Optimism, Agitation

Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.28, New Directions Publishing

32 Copy quote
I must go on living. And, though it may be childish of me, I can't go on in simple compliance. From now on I must struggle with the world. I thought that Mother might well be the last of those who can end their lives beautifully and sadly, struggling with no one, neither hating nor betraying anyone. In the world to come there will be no room for such people. The dying are beautiful, but to live, to survive – those things somehow seem hideous and contaminated with blood.

Osamu Dazai

Beautiful, Mother, Hate

57 Copy quote
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

Liars, Philosophy, People

Osamu Dazai (1968). “The Setting Sun”, p.97, New Directions Publishing

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Born: June 19, 1909
Died: June 13, 1948
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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