Quotes About Change

very often a man's whole life alters course because of a moment's hesitation. That instant is like a fold made down the middle of a sheet of paper. In it, the underside becomes upmost, and what was once visible is hidden forever.

The law is an accumulation of tireless attempts to block a man's desire to change life into an instant of poetry. Certainly it would not be right to let everybody exchange his life for a line of poetry written with a splash of blood. But the mass of men, lacking valor, pass away their lives without ever feeling the least touch of such a desire.

Blood and flowers were alike, Isao thought, in that both were quick to dry up, quick to change their substance. And precisely because of this, then, blood and flowers could go on living by taking on the substance of glory. Glory in all its form was inevitably something metallic.

Even though the world might change into the kind I hoped for, it lost its rich charm at the very instant of change. The thing that lay at the far end of my dreams was extreme danger and destruction; never once had I envisaged happiness. The most appropriate type of daily life for me was a day-by-day world destruction; peace was the most difficult and abnormal state to live in.

Because all those people around you and Miss Satoko are moving slowly but inexorably toward a dénouement. You don't think the two of you can hover forever in mid-air like two dragonflies making love?

U mladosti duhovni saputnici su nam prijatelji i knjige. Ali najve?a razlika izme?u prijatelja i knjiga je ta da se prijatelji menjaju, a knjige ne. Knjiga, ?ak i ako skuplja prašinu na polici ili u nekom uglu sobe, uporno ?uva svoj karakter i svoju filozofiju. Prihvataju?i je ili odbacuju?i je, ?itaju?i je ili ne, mi samo možemo da promenimo naš stav prema njoj, i to je sve.

The philosophy that prepares a revolution and the sentiment that underpins the philosophy have, in every case the two pillars of nihilism and mysticism.

They avoided talk of the old days, like a pair weaving in and out among puddles after a rainstorm, so deftly that neither of them found the process awkward.

Habit is a horrible thing. I repeated the kiss for which I had so repented.

It was a painful awakening. Why were things wrong just as they were? The questions which I had asked myself numberless times since boyhood rose again to my lips. Why are we all burdened with the duty to destroy everything, change everything, entrust everything to impermanency? Is it this unpleasant duty that the world calls life? Or am I the only one for whom it is a duty? At least there was no doubt that I was alone in regarding the duty as a heavy burden.

I had a presentiment then that there is in this world a kind of desire like stinging pain. Looking up at that dirty youth, I was choked by desire, thinking, 'I want to change into him', thinking, 'I want to be him'.

Why were things wrong just as they were? The questions which I had asked myself numberless times since boyhood rose again to my lips. Why are we all burdened with the duty to destroy everything, change everything, entrust everything to impermanency? Is it this unpleasant duty that the world calls life? Or am I the only one for whom it is a duty?

Perché siamo giunti a una società del genere? Perché viviamo in un'era in cui tutto ciò che era puro è stato contaminato?

still, the loss of something is significant, and I think that loss is the necessary source of a new manifestation.

We do not collide with our destiny all of a sudden.

In attesa della venuta di un universo di felicità assoluta e uniti da un unico interesse maledetto, sognavano un semplice assioma. Sognavano il giorno in cui quello dell'amore di un uomo per un altro uomo avrebbe capovolto il vecchio assioma dell'amore di un uomo per una donna.

Why were things wrong just as they were? The questions which I asked myself numberless times since boyhood rose again to my lips. Why are we all burdened with the duty to destroy everything, change everything, entrust everything to impermanency? Is it this unpleasant duty that the world calls life? Or am I the only one for whom it is a duty? At least there was no doubt that I was alone in regarding the duty as a heavy burden.

Cómo soportar una época que ha manchado todo lo que en otros tiempos era sagrado?

Venne un giorno, agli sgoccioli della primavera, che sembrava lo scampolo che un sarto avesse staccato da una pezza d'estate, oppure una prova in costume della stagione ventura.

Tu sei come un torrente chiaro che scorre sulle rocce, io sono come il suo letto levigato, eroso dalla corrente. Solo se il torrente si asciuga il letto viene risparmiato ma, nonostante tutto, quest'ultimo non vuole inaridirsi e desidera ardentemente che le acque non cessino di scorrere e di consumarlo...

When he was young, there had been only one reality, and the future had seemed to stretch before him, swelling with immense possibilities. But as he grew older, reality seemed to take many forms, and it was the past that seemed refracted into innumerable possibilities

If one looks down on one's old village from a distant mountain pass, whatever details of that era may have faded from memory, the significance of having lived there becomes vividly apparent.

What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

Time is what matters. As time goes by, you and I will be carried inexorably into the mainstream of our period, even though we're unaware of what it is. And later, when they say that young men in the early Taisho era thought, dressed, talked, in such and such a way, they'll be talking about you and me. We'll all be lumped together…. In a few decades, people will see you and the people you despise as one and the same, a single entity.