Sanshirō Quotes

“Desire is a frightening thing.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Why haven’t you changed?’ and she said, ‘Because the year I had this face, the month I wore these clothes, and the day I had my hair like this is my favourite time of all.’ ‘What time is that?’ I asked her. ‘The day we met twenty years ago,’ she said. I wondered to myself, ‘Then why have I aged like this?’ and she told me, ‘Because you wanted to go on changing, moving towards something more and more beautiful.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“You'd better watch out—life can be dangerous.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself ― not to Japan, not to anything. You may think that what you're doing is for the sake of the nation, but let something take possession of you like that, and all you do is bring it down.”
― Sōseki Natsume, Sanshirō

“When he heard that Sanshiro was going to school forty hours a week, his eyes popped. "You idiot! Do you think it would 'satisfy' you to eat what they serve at your rooming house ten times a day?"
"What should I do?" Sanshiro pleaded.
"Ride the streetcar," Yojiro said.
Sanshiro tried to find Yojiro's hidden meaning, without success.
"You mean a real streetcar?" he asked.
Yojiro laughed uncontrollably. "Get on the streetcar and ride around Tokyo ten or fifteen times. After a while it will just happen by itself- you will become satisfied.
"Why?"
"Why? Well, look at it this way. Your head is alive, but if you seal it up inside dead classes, you're lost. Take it outside and get the wind into it. Riding the streetcar is not the only way to get satisfaction, of course, but it's the first step, and the easiest.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“If a man starts a campaign on my behalf without consulting me, he's just toying with my existence. Think how much better off you'd be to have your existence ignored. At least your reputation wouldn't suffer!”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“It seems to me that you might create any sort of character in a novel and there would be at least one person in the world just like him. We humans are simply incapable of imagining non-human actions or behavior. It's the writer's fault if we don't believe in his characters as human beings.”
― Sōseki Natsume, Sanshirō

“Then I said to her, "You are a painting," and she said, "You are a poem.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“When I was a student, there wasn't a single thing we did that was unrelated to others. It was all for the Emperor, or parents, or the country, or society—everything was other-centered, which means that all educated men were hypocrites. When society changed, this hypocrisy ceased to work, and as a result, self-centeredness was gradually imported into thought and action, and egoism became enormously over-developed. Instead of the old hypocrites, now all we've got are out-and-out rogues. Do you see what I mean by that?”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“He saw the human shadows flitting through his second world. Most of them had unkempt beards. Some walked along looking at the sky, others at the ground. All wore shabby clothing. All lived in poverty. And all were serene. Closed in on every side by streetcars, they freely breathed the air of peace. The men in this world were unfortunate, for they knew nothing of the real world. But they were fortunate as well, for they had fled the Burning House of worldly suffering. Professor Hirota was in this second world. So, too, was Nonomiya. Sanshiro stood where he could understand the air of this world more or less. He could leave it whenever he wished. But to do so, to relinquish a taste he had finally begun to savor, was something he was loath to do.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Doğa, bir mücevheri yaratana kadar kim bilir kaç yıl harcamıştır. Yine o mücevher, madencinin şansı yaver gidene dek, yıldızlar altında kaç yıl, tek başına parlamıştır?”
― Sōseki Natsume, Sanshirō

“The call for political freedom took place long ago. The call for freedom of speech is also a thing of the past. Freedom is not a word to be used exclusively for phenomena such as this which are so easily given outward manifestation. I believe that we young men of the new age have encountered the moment in time when we must call for that great freedom, the freedom of the mind.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“...He said defensively, "But from now on, Japan is sure to develop."

"Japan's headed for a fall," the man said coolly.

Say a thing like that in Kumamoto and you'd get a punch in the nose, or be called a traitor. The atmosphere Sanshiro grew up in left no room in his head for such an idea. Just because he was young, was the man having some fun at his expense? The man kept on grinning. Yet his way of talking was perfectly composed. Not knowing what to think, Sanshiro held his tongue.

His companion went on, "Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And what's bigger than Japan is..." He paused and looked at Sanshiro, who was listening intently. "...the inside of your head. That's bigger than Japan. Don't let yourself get bogged down. You may believe your way of thinking is for the good of the nation, but you could actually be bringing it down."

When he heard this, Sanshiro felt he had indeed left Kumamoto. And he realized, too, what a small person his Kumamoto self had been.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“To you it looks like I’m being devious, but all I’m doing is using human ingenuity beforehand to keep the natural order of things from going astray. That’s entirely different from hatching foolish schemes that go against nature. So what if I’m being devious? Devious methods aren’t bad. Only bad methods are bad.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Literature is neither technique or business. It is a motive force of society, a force that is more in touch with the fundamental principles of human life. That is why we study literature.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Hirota feels strongly drawn toward nature and the natural, is hyper-sensitive to the artificial—particularly that most cramped and constraining man-made creation, society—and does his best to avoid it.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Sanshirō pressed for a few details on why they had to move. Their damned extortionist of a landlord made him furious the way he kept raising the rent, Yojirō said, and he had announced their intention to leave. So it was Yojirō’s responsibility.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshiro

“Самое жуткое в нашей жизни - не страх. Он был всегда, он и до сих пор является нам в разных обличьях, иногда портя жизнь. Самое жуткое - повернуться спиной к страху и закрыть глаза. И тогда мы невольно уступаем чему-нибудь своё самое сокровенное.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sanshirō

“We hear about the way middle-school teachers and such live, and it all seems terribly sad, but the only ones who really feel sad are the men themselves. That’s because modern-day people are fond of facts but they habitually throw out the sentiments that accompany the facts—which is all they can do, because society is pressing in on us so relentlessly we’re forced to throw them out. You can see this in the newspaper. Nine out of ten human interest stories are tragedies, but we have nothing to spare, nothing that enables us to feel them as tragedies. We read them only as factual reports. In the newspaper I take I often see the headline, ‘So-and-so Many Die,’ under which the name, address and cause of death of everyone who has died of unnatural causes that day is listed in small type, one line per person. It’s the ultimate in concision and lucidity. There’s also a column called ‘Burglaries at a Glance,’ in which all the burglaries are lumped together so that you can tell literally at a glance what kind of burglaries have been committed where—another great convenience. You have to realize that everything is like this. It’s the same with a resignation. To the man concerned, it might be an incident bordering on tragedy, but it’s important to face the fact that others don’t feel it with the same intensity. You would probably do well to keep this in mind when searching for work.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshiro

“of us here are engaged in the study of Western literature. A study of literature, however, is always and ever a study. It is fundamentally different from bowing at the feet of that literature. We do not study Western literature in order to surrender ourselves to it, but to emancipate minds that have already surrendered to it. We possess the confidence and determination never to study any literature, however coercively it may be pressed upon us, that does not coincide with this purpose.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshiro

“That’s why I call him the Great Darkness. He reads everything, but he doesn’t give off any light. I wish he would read something a little more fashionable and make himself a little more conspicuous.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshiro

“Westerners are very beautiful, aren’t they?” he said. Sanshirō could think of nothing to say in reply. He nodded and smiled. “We Japanese are sad-looking things next to them. We can beat the Russians, we can become a ‘first-class power,’ but it doesn’t make any difference. We still have the same faces, the same feeble little bodies. Just look at the houses we live in, the gardens we build around them. They’re just what you’d expect from faces like this. —Oh yes, this is your first trip to Tokyo, isn’t it? You’ve never seen Mount Fuji. We go by it a little farther on. Have a look. It’s the finest thing Japan has to offer, the only thing we have to boast about. The trouble is, of course, it’s just a natural object. It’s been sitting there for all time. We didn’t make it.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshiro

“端書の裏に、迷える子を二匹書いて、その一匹を暗に自分に見立ててくれたのを甚だ嬉しく思った。”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“生きている美禰子に対しては、美しい享楽の底に、一種の苦悶がある。三四郎はこの苦悶を払おうとして、真直に進んで行く。進んで行けば苦悶が除れるように思う。苦悶を除るために一歩傍へ退くことは夢にも案じ得ない。”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“三四郎は近頃女に囚れた。恋人に囚われたのなら、かえって面白いが、惚れられているんだか、馬鹿にされているんだか、怖がっていいんだか、蔑んでいいんだか、廃すべきだか、続けべきだか訳の分らない囚われ方である。”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Ora io sto studiando questo libro solo per l'esame, solo per guadagnarmi il pane, trattenendo rabbia e lacrime. Ricordate: sia maledetto per sempre il sistema degli esami!”
― Natsume Sōseki, Sanshirō

“Önünden bir çocuğun cenazesi geçti. Cenazeye, haori giymiş sadece iki erkek eşlik ediyordu. Ufacık tabut, bembeyaz bir örtüyle örtülmüştü. Yanına güzel bir rüzgar gülü kondurulmuştu. Rüzgar gülü durmaksızın dönüyordu. Gül'ün kanatları, beş ayrı renge boyalıydı. Bu beş renk, gül dönerken tek renge dönüşüyordu. Beyaz tabut, güzel rüzgar gülünü hareket halinde tutarak, Sanşiro'nun yanından geçti gitti. Sanşiro "Ne kadar güzel bir cenaze," diye düşündü.”
― Sōseki Natsume, Sanshirō