R > R's Quotes

“This is what I am talking about: the bewitching power of moonlight. Moonlight incites dark passions like a cold flame, making hearts burning with the intensity of phosphorus.”
― Rampo Edogawa

“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, No Longer Human

“This I want to believe implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“His dying mind conjured up one last, reassuring thought.
In the end, don't we all come from dust anyway? We come from dust... and we end as dust.
The oh-so-short passage in between is the bit we call 'life'.
Everything ends eventually.
Everything.”
― Alex Scarrow, The Infinity Cage

“it is in our nature to destroy ourselves, then rebuild. Destruction is a natural part of our life-cycle.”
― Alex Scarrow, The Mayan Prophecy

“Not all the leaves have fallen yet. When I look at the distant mountains, my heart is filled with yearning and longs to vanish into them.”
― Doppo Kunikida, River Mist and Other Stories

“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”
― J. Michael Straczynski

“When you don't know what you're living for, you don't care how you live from one day to the next. You're happy the day has passed and the night has come, and in your sleep you bury the tedious question of what you lived for that day and what you're going to live for tomorrow.”
― Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov

“Memories are the height of poetry only when they are memories of happiness. When they graze wounds over which scars have formed they become an aching pain.”
― Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov

“I can give myself to her
In her dreams
Whispering her own poems
In her ear as she sleeps beside me.”
― Akiko Yosano

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Love one another, Fathers,’ said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha could remember afterwards. ‘Love God’s people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth....

And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognise that. Else he would have had no reason to come here. When he realises that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men — and everything
on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and
every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears....

Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even when perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no conditions with God. Again, I say, be not proud. Be proud neither to the little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialists — and I mean not only the good ones — for there are many good ones among them, especially in our day — hate not even the wicked ones. Remember them in your prayers thus: Save, O Lord, all those who have none to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray. And add: it is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men....

Love God’s people, let not strangers draw away the flock, for if you slumber in your slothfulness and disdainful pride, or worse still, in covetousness, they will come from all sides and draw away your flock. Expound the Gospel to the people unceasingly... be not extortionate.... Do not love gold and silver, do not hoard them.... Have faith. Cling to the banner and raise it on high.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I endured it.” Within the darkness, Akutagawa’s sharp eyes gleamed. “Four times. But any more than that is impossible. There are areas mankind should never step into. If I handle that forty times, even if my body lives I will surpass the abyss of the mental realm.”
― Kafka Asagiri

“Emotions are at the center of a person’s being. But what exists in the center of the world are not emotions. Nothing exists in the center of the world……so don’t chase emotions, Akutagawa. Don’t chase the beast known as yourself. Stand on your two legs, don’t cling to somebody else, stay calm and tough. If you don’t, you won’t survive.”
― Kafka Asagiri

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“But why, if you
are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to
show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach
children. But why is it you do nothing now?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment World's Masterpiece

“When you come face to face with absolute reliability, you tend, first of all, to burst into silly laughter. You just come all undone. It's like-this is a funny way to put it, I know, but it's like chuckling with relief after loosening your belt. Young men, if ever the one you love bursts out laughing the moment she sees you, you are to be congratulated. By no means must you reproach her. She has merely been overwhelmed by the absolute reliability she senses in you.”
― Osamu Dazai

“Can't a man be satisfied without having to beat
everybody at everything?”
― Osamu Dazai, 庭 [Niwa]

“The living world is a dream. The nocturnal dream is reality.”
― Rampo Edogawa

“From dawn to dusk I spent my time in the real world. Only in my dreams at night could I indulge my fantasies.”
― Rampo Edogawa, The Edogawa Rampo Reader

“Do not pity yourself. If you wallow in self-pity, life will be an endless nightmare.”
― Kafka Asagiri, 文豪ストレイドッグス 7 [Bungō Stray Dogs 7]

“Haven’t we known for a long time that it’s a mistake to attach meaning to each and every action of a person? Forced explanations often end in a distortion of lies.”
― Osamu Dazai, パンドラの匣

“Death is not final. As long as the living memorialise their deceased, the dead gain immortality. Death then becomes a journey to the next phase of in-existence. Death is a gate. To die is not the end. You pass the gate and move on to the next stage.”
― Hikaru Suzuki, Death and Dying in Contemporary Japan