How Do You Live?

by Genzaburo Yoshino

Sometimes the joy of books that seem to contain opposing elements is realising that without both things, you would have a lesser book.

It was a space for the whole person.

those people, every morning, every evening, were rising and falling like the tides.

The watching self, the self being watched, and furthermore the self becoming conscious of all this, the self observing itself by itself, from afar, all those various selves overlapped in his heart, and suddenly he began to feel dizzy.

I used to revisit a very similar thread as a child. My backdrop was the stars, imagining all the many people on all the many planets twinkling above us. It always ended in the enormous rush of a black hole.

to see yourself as a single molecule within the wide world—that is by no means a small discovery.

there may be nothing more deep-rooted and stubborn than the human tendency to look at and think of things with themselves at the center.

Most people slip into a self-interested way of thinking, become unable to understand the facts of the matter, and end up seeing only that which betters their own circumstances.

What a gift his uncle offered him. Instead of turning a self discovery moment into a lecture, he gave his nephew space. To draw it all in. And instead, chose to write his thoughts. Perhaps to find their way to Copper at a later time. A sharing if “I saw wonder & curiosity & courage within you. Let me tell you about it”.

a sly smile floated up onto his face.

Listening to this story, Copper had an ugly feeling.

you can’t become a great man without having great thoughts.

To appreciate art, you must use your inner eyes and ears. You must open your heart.

If it means anything at all to live in this world, it’s that you must live your life like a true human being and feel just what you feel. This is not something that anyone can teach from the sidelines, no matter how great a person they may be.

For it is only through the life you will lead, building on your many experiences and impressions, that you will be able to understand the truths in the words of these great thinkers.

That is why I think the first, most basic step in these matters is to start with the moments of real feeling in your life, when your heart is truly moved, and to think about the meaning of those. The things that you feel most deeply, from the very bottom of your heart, will never deceive you in the slightest. And so at all times, in all things, whatever feelings you may have, consider these carefully.

We hope more than anything that you will think great thoughts about the world and what it means to be human, and also that you will actually lead a great life in accordance with those thoughts.

The most important thing—more than what other people think, more than anything—is that you should first know for yourself, truly and deeply, where human greatness lies.

There are lots of people in the world who act just for appearance’s sake—in order to seem great in the eyes of others. That type of person worries first about how they are reflected in other people’s eyes, and they inadvertently end up neglecting their true selves, as they really are. I hope you don’t become that sort of person.

you absolutely must attend to the things you feel in your own heart, the things that move you deeply.

with a single law of physics, he was able to explain both the things of heaven and the things of earth.

In the sky, the moon, without anger, laughter, or tears, with a quiet countenance over the rooftops and telephone poles, slipped past the boughs of the keyaki trees

for the sake of discovery, I think sometimes you have to live with being scolded by the teacher.

There is nothing more beautiful than people nurturing goodwill toward their fellow beings. And those are the human relations that humans truly deserve.

embarrassed but a little proud.

Human beings should never be so humiliated as to damage their self-respect.

Please hold this thought deep in your heart.

a human being who doesn’t understand the essentials of being human, in other words, is a pitiful fool.

Courage grows in a person, higher than any barrier,

People becoming more than people—”

His biography sells briskly all over the world.

when something makes a deep impression on you, you should remember it and reflect on its meaning later,

The people that we call great or heroic are all of them extraordinary people. They have abilities that everyday people do not, and can accomplish things that everyday people can’t.

You must delve ever so deeply into the resolute spirit of the man who faced such hardship

The world is full of people who are not bad, but weak, people who bring unnecessary misfortune upon themselves and others for no reason but weakness. A heroic spirit that’s not devoted to human progress may be empty and meaningless, but goodness that is lacking in the spirit of heroism is often empty as well.

Kurokawa’s face was thick skinned and pimply, like the rind of a bitter orange,

Perhaps nobody else had noticed, but he himself knew what he had done.

Copper yearned to banish this memory from his heart.

They probably still felt bad about what had happened, but along with those bad feelings, they had the happiness of having friends whom they knew they could believe in.

the memory of that would leave an ugly mark on his heart forever.

How could he deceive himself?

he hadn’t tortured himself with remorse.

This is not something to carry around with you in your heart forever!”

Why don’t you be brave and take responsibility for what you did, as far as you are able?”

now is the moment to show courage!

The chance to do what I had felt in my heart probably wasn’t going to come a second time.

Why didn’t I do what was in my heart that one time?

We act to show the warm and beautiful things we feel in our hearts,

If we were not born with the ability to conduct ourselves with morality, there would be no reason for bitter tears.

just knowing the meaning of the words was a very different thing from grasping the truth expressed by those words.