Quotes from Osamu Dazai

That's because he's desperate to have others believe him omnipotent. Pure stupidity! The world's not like that. You've got to bow before someone to get on. That's the only way—struggle ahead one step at a time while keeping the others back.

Chorei amargamente e num tom alto. Poderia ter continuado a chorar para o resto da minha vida

There is no insufferable, painful hell like that of deceiving people all the time.

Recently I have come to understand why such things as war, peace, unions, trade, politics exist in the world. I don't suppose you know. That's why you will always be unhappy. I'll tell you why--it is so that women will give birth to healthy babies.

And always there were those impossible commands: "Feed the multitude!" he insisted, when all we had were five loaves and two fishes.

Women are of course superficial, but one cannot say that men are very clever either.

I thought, "As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn't matter how, it'll be all right. 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.

Men speak words that sound quite grand, but all the while they spend their days concerned about predicting the thoughts of their adorable little wife. Whether it is prosperity, success, or victory—these ambitions come from the desire to please that single, beautiful wife. They add all kinds of logic to it and work hard at it, but all they want is to be praised.

I missed my older sister, or people I used to be friends with, or people I hadn't seen in a long time. I cannot stand mornings because it seems I am always bleakly reminded of long-gone times, and people I used to know, and their presences feel eerily close, like the scent of pickled radish that you just can't get rid of.

It wasn't an ordinary sickness. God had killed me, and only after He had made me into someone entirely different from the person I had been, did he call me back to life.

But those people who live life with a practical heart in actuality make us feel quite sad. I do not dislike my brother in any way, but I do not feel the kind of intimacy that would make me want to share everything that I feel with him. I feel the same way towards my father.

Oh, I too am a wretched man. Nobody in this world wants to be my friend. And here I am proud to have caught one single fool like you.

There's no such thing as 'seeing what happens' in this life. To do something just to see what happens is exactly the same as just plain doing it.

The more naked a person's words are, the more comical, broken, and made-up they sound.

This was the first time in my life that I had become aware of the existence of the wall of despair built of all the many things in the world before which human strength is helpless.

To have done a rather horrible thing, and think that one can be forgiven with just the phrase 'I'm sorry,'—one would have to be a selfish person with no consciousness of their own wrongdoing.

The man even says that he who exalts himself shall be humbled and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. Does anyone in the real world get away with such cajolery? Deceiver! I only believe in happiness in this world. I'm not afraid of any judgment hereafter.

Victims. Victims of a transitional period of morality. This is what we both certainly are. The revolution must be taking place somewhere, but the old morality persists unchanged in the world around us and lies athwart our way. However much the waves on the surface of the sea may rage, the water at the bottom, far from experiencing a revolution, lies motionless, awake but feigning sleep.

I'm never satisfied. I need stronger and stronger stimulation. But I'm a coward and a lazybones, so for the most part nothing happens beyond my imagining some excitement. I'm a speculator of the metaphysical. An adventurer only in my mind. A navigator within the reading room. In other words, I'm an insignificant dream-weaver.

I thought, "As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn't matter how, I'll be all right". 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.

Ach, ?ycie ludzkie jest zbyt ?a?osne! Rzeczywisto??, w której wszyscy my?l?, ?e lepiej by?oby si? nie urodzi?. I tak codziennie, od rana do wieczora, jedynie na co? czekam. To zbyt ?a?osne. Ach, jak?e chcia?abym si? cieszy?, ?e si? urodzi?am, cieszy? si? z ?ycia, z ludzi, z tego ?wiata!

If you've slept soundly at night the morning is exhilarating, I suppose.

Even if their faces turn pale, what kind of proof would that be? And on the other hand if they laugh with no concern at all, that doesn't mean they're not guilty. We could of course judge the sharpness or dullness of their senses, but we can't judge their innocence.

Where waste occurs, want will follow