Kokoro Natsume Sōseki Quotes

I do not want your admiration now, because I do not want your insults in the future. I bear with my loneliness now, in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.

...you don't really become a finer person just by reading lots of books.

It is not you in particular that I distrust, but the whole of humanity.

I am an inconsistent creature. Perhaps it is the pressure of my past, and not my own perverse mind, that has made me into this contradictory being. I am all too well aware of this fault in myself. You must forgive me.

On the whole, all people are good, or at least they're normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch.

The memory of having sat at someone's feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot.

I am a lonely man,' Sensei said. 'And so I am glad that you come to see me. But I am also a melancholy man, and so I asked you why you should wish to visit me so often.

From then on, my thesis hung over me like a curse, and with bloodshot eyes, I worked like a madman.

You have a fine scholar's way with words, I must say. You're good at empty reasoning.

I felt for her a love that was close to pious faith. You may find it odd that I use a specifically religious word to describe my feelings for a young woman, but real love, I firmly believe, is not so different from the religious impulse. Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful.

But to my questions he gave replies so vague that one could not tell whether they came from the mountains or the sea.

Anyone without spiritual aspirations is a fool

I am a lonely man," he said again that evening. "And is it not possible that you are also a lonely person? But I am an older man, and I can live with my loneliness, quietly. You are young, and it must be difficult to accept your loneliness. You must sometimes want to fight it." "But I am not at all lonely." "Youth is the loneliest time of all. Otherwise, why should you come so often to my house?" Sensei continued: "But surely, when you are with me, you cannot rid yourself of your loneliness. I have not it in me to help you forget it. You will have to look elsewhere for the consolation you seek. And soon, you will find that you no longer want to visit me." As he said this, Sensei smiled sadly.

Now, I myself am about to cut open my own heart, and drench your face with my blood. And I shall be satisfied if, when my heart stops beating, a new life lodges itself in your breast.

No matter how full one's head might be with the image of greatness, one was useless, I found out, unless one was a worthy man first.

Did you not come to me because you felt there was something lacking?' 'Yes. But my going to you was not the same thing as wanting to fall in love.

But sick or well, humans are fragile creatures, you know. There's no anticipating how or when they might die, or for what reason

Just as you can only really smell incense in the first moments after it is lit, or taste wine in that instant of the first sip, the impulse of love springs from a single, perilous moment in time, I feel.

No matter how fierce was the passion that gripped him, the fact is he was paralyzed, transfixed by the contemplation of his own past. Only something so momentous as to drive from his consciousness all thoughts of before and after could have propelled him forward. And with his eyes fixed on the past, he had no choice but to continue along its trajectory.

I thought of the new stone, of my new wife, and of the newly buried white bones beneath us, and I felt that fate had made sport of us all.

It's a shame that an education just gives people the means to chop logic

- I don't even trust myself. It's because I can't trust myself that I can't trust others. I can only curse myself for it. = Once you start thinking that way, then surely no one's entirely reliable. - It's not thinking that's led me here. It's doing, I once did something that shocked me, then terrified me

I don't like argumentation. You men do it a lot, don't you? You seem to enjoy it. I'm always amazed at how men can go on and on, happily passing around the empty cup of some futile discussion

Or perhaps, after all, our differences spring form the individual natures we were born with

The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot. I’m trying to fend off your admiration for me, you see, in order to save myself from your future contempt. I prefer to put up with my present state of loneliness rather than suffer more loneliness later. We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It’s the price we pay for these times of ours.

But do you imagine there’s a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a ‘bad person'? You’ll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole, all people are good, or at least they’re normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch. That’s why you have to be careful.

Youth is the loneliest time of all.

Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful. At the mere thought of her, I felt elevated by contact with her nobility. If this strange phenomenon we call Love can be said to have two poles, the higher of which is a sense of holiness and the baser the impulse of sexual desire, this love of mine was undoubtedly in the grip of Love’s higher realm. Being human, of course, I could not leave my fleshly self behind, yet the eyes that beheld her, the heart that treasured thoughts of her, knew nothing of the reek of the physical.

In past summers when I had been home, I had often tasted a strange sadness as I sat quietly in the midst of the seething cicada song. This sorrow seemed to pierce deep into my heart along with the piercing insect cry. Always at such times I would sit alone and still, gazing into myself.

His grin seemed to say, “It is, for some strange reason, considered proper to congratulate people on such occasions as this.

There was a large crowd around us, and every face in it looked happy. We had little opportunity to talk until we reached the woods, where there were no flowers and no people.

Now I am going to destroy my heart myself, and pour my blood into your veins. I shall be happy if a new life can enter into your bosom, when my heart has stopped beating.

On the other hand, I would rather see it destroyed, with my life, than offer it to someone who does not want it.

My love for her was close to piety. You may think it strange that I should use this word, with its religious connotation, to describe my feeling towards a woman. But even now I believe—and I believe it very strongly—that true love is not so far removed from religious faith.

I tried instead to drown my soul in drink. I cannot say I like alcohol, but I am someone who can drink if I choose to, and I set about obliterating my heart by drinking all I could. This was a puerile way out, of course, and it very quickly led to an even greater despair with the world. In the midst of a drunken stupor, I would come to my senses and realize what an idiot I was to try to fool myself like this. Then my vision and understanding grew clear, and I sat shivering and sober. There were desolate times when even the poor disguise of drunkenness failed to work, no matter how I drank. And each time I sought pleasure in drink, I emerged more depressed than ever.

But the main reason for my immobility lay quite elsewhere. True enough, my uncle’s betrayal had made me fiercely determined never to be beholden to anyone again—but back then my distrust of others had only reinforced my sense of self. The world might be rotten, I felt, but I at least am a man of integrity. But this faith in myself had been shattered on account of K. I suddenly understood that I was no different from my uncle, and the knowledge made me reel. What could I do? Others were already repulsive to me, and now I was repulsive even to myself.

But is it not possible that there is yet another meaning hidden behind his words?" Unfortunately, I was unable to see things clearly then: it is sad to think how blind I was.

To say that K did not guard himself well would be an understatement. In his innocence, he put himself completely at my mercy.

The trouble with education,” said my father, “is that it makes a man argumentative.

But even now I believe—and I believe it very strongly—that true love is not so far removed from religious faith.

presence

Finally, I became aware of the possibility that K had experienced loneliness as terrible as mine, and wishing to escape quickly from it, had killed himself. Once more, fear gripped my heart.

I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and said to him, ‘If there’s any fault in me, then please tell me honestly. If I can correct it, I will.’ And he replied, ‘You don’t have any fault. The fault is in me.’ When I heard that, it made me unbearably sad. It made me cry. And I longed more than ever to know how I might be to blame.

But I insist that I was not being vindictive. I confess to you that what I was trying to do was far more cruel than mere revenge. I wanted to destroy whatever hope there might have been in his love for Ojosan.

He had never disliked me, and the occasional curt greetings and aloofness were not expressions of displeasure intended to keep me at bay. I pity him now, for I realize that he was in fact sending a warning, to someone who was attempting to grow close to him, signaling that he was unworthy of such intimacy. For all his unresponsiveness to others' affection, I now see, it was not them he despised but himself.

Let us not argue. You men certainly will argue about anything, and with such obvious pleasure too. I have often wondered how it is that you men can, without becoming bored, forever exchange empty saké cups with one another." Her words, I thought, were a little harsh. But they did not seem offensive to me. Sensei's wife was not so modern a woman as to take pride and pleasure in being able to display her mental prowess. She valued far more that thing which lies buried in the bottom of one's heart.

You have never thought seriously of the reality of death, have you?

You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.

неведомая страшная сила, препятствовавшая каждому моему движению, оставляла мне свободным только один путь — путь смерти.

Is it not because women are so trusting that they are constantly being deceived by men?

It’s a crime not to make the best use of whatever ability one has.

You must remember that there is guilt in loving.

I pity him now, for I realize that he was in fact sending a warning, to someone who was attempting to grow close to him, signaling that he was unworthy of such intimacy. For all his unresponsiveness to others’ affection, I now see, it was not them he despised but himself.

But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ideals? Perhaps—but this was still not quite it. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it was not the same unbearable loneliness that I now felt that had brought K to his decision.

Under normal conditions, everybody is more or less good, or, at least, ordinary. But tempt them, and they may suddenly change. That is what is so frightening about men. One must always be on one’s guard.

I finally tired of my own inability to decide whether I would speak to K or remain silent. It was, I remember, on a Saturday night that I told myself: "Tomorrow, I will make up my mind one way or the other.

That K was hesitant in love does not mean that his love was in any sense lukewarm. He was unable to move, despite the violence of his emotion. And since the impact of his new emotion was not so great as to allow him to forget himself, he was forced to look back and remind himself of what his past had meant. And in doing so he could not but continue along the path that he had so far followed.

Along the way my eyes drank in the vivid sight of a citrus hedge, its white buds bursting forth from the blackened branches, and a pomegranate tree, the glistening yellowish leaves sprouting from its withered trunk and glowing softly in the sunlight. It was as if I were seeing such things for the first time.

I may be simply repeating what has always been known, but I do believe that for love to grow there must first be the impact of novelty. Between two people who have always known each other, that necessary stimulus. can never be felt. Like the first whiff of burning incense, or like the taste of one's first cup of saké, there is in love that moment when all its power is felt. There may be fondness, but not love, between two people who have come to know each other well without ever having grasped that moment.

I want both the good and bad things in my past to serve as an example to others. But my wife is the one exception—I do not want her to know about any of this. My first wish is that her memory of me should be kept as unsullied as possible. So long as my wife is alive, I want you to keep everything I have told you a secret—even after I myself am dead.

Sensei was a man who could, indeed must love, yet he was unable to open his arms and accept into his heart another who sought to enter.

Anyone who has no spiritual aspirations is an idiot.

Azaleas bloomed all around us like flames.

Words are not just vibrations in the air, they work more powerfully than thatm and on more powerful objects.

I believe that a commonplace idea stated with passionate conviction carries more living truth than some novel observation expressed with cool indifference.

Якби я був той, за кого вона мене має, то так не мучився б.

don’t put too much trust in me. You will learn to regret it if you do. And if you ever allow yourself to feel betrayed, you will then find yourself being cruelly vindictive.

mistreatment of the body was necessary for the glorification of the soul.

First, the plum trees bloomed, and then the cold wind veered towards the south.

Incluso aquí, conmigo, es probable que te sientas solo. Yo no tengo la fuerza suficiente para agarrar tu soledad y expulsarla de ti.

I decided to leave the piece of ice out in the sun, and wait until it had melted and turned into warm water. Then, I thought, he would begin to see the error of his ways.

And remember too that in loving there is something sacred.

Of het nu fysiek of mentaal is, al onze capaciteiten ontwikkelen zich door prikkels van buitenaf en daar worden ze ook door kapotgemaakt.

Ahora sí, voy a abrirte mi corazón para verter mi sangre sobre ti. Me daré por satisfecho si cuando deje de latir, una nueva vida ha arraigado en tu pecho.

A man capable of love, or I should say rather a man who was by nature incapable of not loving; but a man who could not wholeheartedly accept the love of another--such a one was Sensei.

Щоб у майбутньому не бути ще самотнішим, я тепер захищаю свою самотність. Ми народилися в час, переповнений свободи, незалежности й самостійности, і як жертву за це мусимо спізнати самотність.

The memory of having sat at someone's feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot. I'm trying to fend off your admiration for me, you see, in order to save myself from your future contempt.

What this feeling produced was, quite simply, a keen awareness of the nature of human sin. That is what sent me back each month to K’s grave. It is also what lay behind the nursing of my dying mother-in-law, and what bade me treat my wife so tenderly. There were even times when I longed for some stranger to come along and flog me as I deserved. At some stage this feeling transformed into a conviction that it should be I who hurt myself. And then the thought struck me that I should not just hurt myself but kill myself. At all events, I resolved that I must live my life as if I were already dead.

Сенсей не належав ні до тих, що люблять увесь світ, ні до тих, що ненавидять усе на світі, до того ж це була людина, яка нізащо не прийме в розкриті обійми того, хто шукає стежки до її душі. Таким був Сенсей.

everything had to be sacrificed for the sake of “the true way.” Even love without bodily desire was to be avoided. Pursuit of “the true way” necessitated not merely restraint of appetite, but total abstinence.

You revealed a shameless determination to seize something really alive from within my very being. You were prepared to rip open my heart and drink at its warm fountain of blood. I was still alive then. I did not want to die. And so I evaded your urges and promised to do as you asked another day. Now I will wrench open my heart and pour its blood over you. I will be satisfied if, when my own heart has ceased to beat, your breast houses new life.

I bear with my loneliness now in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egotistical selves.

This was the first time I actually privately respected you. You revealed a shameless determination to seize something really alive from within my very being. You were prepared to rip open my heart and drink at its warm fountain of blood. I was still alive then. I did not want to die. And so I evaded your urgings and promised to do as you asked another day. Now I will wrench open my heart and pour its blood over you. I will be satisfied if, when my own heart has ceased to beat, your breast houses new life.

For I was born an ethical creature, and I was brought up to be an ethical man. True, my ethics may be different from those of the young men of today. But they are at least my own. I did not borrow them for the sake of convenience as a man might a dress suit.

Though I had resolved to live as if I were dead, my heart would at times respond to the activity of the outside world, and seem almost to dance with pent-up energy. But as soon as I tried to break my way through the cloud that surrounded me, a frighteningly powerful force would rush upon me from I know not where, and grip my heart tight, until I could not move. A voice would say to me: "You have no right to do anything. Stay where you are." Whatever desire I might have had for action would suddenly leave me. After a moment, the desire would come back, and I would once more try to break through. Again, I would be restrained. In fury and grief I would cry out: "Why do you stop me?" With a cruel laugh, the voice would answer: "You know very well why." Then I would bow in hopeless surrender.

His curt and cold ways were not designed to express his dislike of me, but they were meant rather as a warning to me that I would not want him as a friend. It was because he despised himself that he refused to accept openheartedly the intimacy of others. I feel great pity for him.

Чувствовать, когда принимаешься за учение, что на тебе лежит что-то огромное, что вступаешь на новый путь, свойственно всем; точно также дело обычное — по прошествии года или двух, когда уж дело близится к окончанию курса, вдруг обнаружить, как медленно двигаешься по этому пути, и пасть духом.

But I believe that a commonplace idea stated with passionate conviction carries more living truth than some novel observation expressed with cool indifference. It is the force of blood that drives the body, after all. Words are not just vibrations in the air, they work more powerfully than that, on more powerful objects.

Оце ти сказав, що начеб у твоїй родині нема поганих людей, еге ж? А ти думаєш, у світі є якісь особливі люди, яких називають поганими? В світі нема такої взірцево поганої людини. Переважно всі добрі — добрі люди, принаймні просто люди. Та найстрашніше, що в годину спокуси вони раптом стають поганими. Тому не можна легковажити.

But for me, the answer that I gave was a living truth. Was I not excited? I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those words which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to strike the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.

As a child will, I loved my home; and when parted from it, there was a yearning for it in my heart. I was like a traveler who, no matter where he goes, never doubts that he will some day return to his place of birth. I came to Tokyo of my own free will, but I had little doubt that I should return when the holidays came. And so I studied and played in the great city, dreaming often of my home.

Когда я теперь оглядываюсь на себя в ту пору и думаю, почему я не родился более дурным, меня берёт досада за мою чрезмерную прямоту и честность в то время. Но в то же время у меня возникает желание как-нибудь ещё раз родиться на свет именно таким. Вспомните! Ведь тот я, которого вы знаете, был уже испачкан грязью. Если старшими зовутся те, за кем числится больше загрязнённых лет, то я, несомненно, старше вас.

Byłem młodzieńcem dość prostodusznym, nie mającym doświadczenia w obcowaniu z kobietami. Czułem, co prawda, instynktowną niejasną tęknotę do płci odmiennej. Ale było to odczucie tak mgliste jak marzenie senne, podobne do wspomnień budzących się w chwili, gdy patrzymy na wiosenne chmury. Dlatego też ulegało nagłej przemianie z chwilą, gdy stawałem przed rzeczywistą kobietą, która - zamiast mnie pociągać - odpychała wzbudzając silną niechęć.

The memory that you once sat at my feet will begin to haunt you and, in bitterness and shame, you will want to degrade me. I do not want your admiration now, because I do not want your insults in the future. I bear with my loneliness now, in order to avoid greater loneliness in the years ahead. You see, loneliness is the price we have to pay for being born in this modern age, so full of freedom, independence, and our own egoistical selves.

Now at last, after Sensei’s passing, I’ve begun to understand. From the very start, Sensei never disliked me. His occasional curt reply or cool demeanor were neither expressions of displeasure nor intent to drive me away. Sensei, wretched in his own being, was wont to hold others at arm’s length. Believing himself unworthy, he fended off all who approached too near. Sensei’s aversion to intimacy, rather than rising from disdain for others, was rooted in disdain for himself.

From then on, a nameless fear would assail me from time to time. At first, it seemed to come over me without warning from the shadows around me, and I would gasp at its unexpectedness. Later, however, when the experience had become more familiar to me, my heart would readily succumb--or perhaps respond--to it; and I would begin to wonder if this fear had not always been in some hidden corner of my heart, ever since I was born. I would then ask myself whether I had not lost my sanity. But I had no desire to go to a doctor, or anyone else, for advice.

I am a lonely man," he said again that evening. "And is it not possible that you are also a lonely person? But I am an older man, and I can live with my loneliness, quietly. You are young, and it must be difficult to accept your loneliness. You must sometimes want to fight it. [...] Youth is the loneliest time of all. Otherwise why should you come so often to my house?" Sensei continued: "But surely, when you are with me, you cannot rid yourself of your loneliness. I have not it in me to help you forget it. You will have to come elsewhere for the consolation you seek. And soon, you will find that you no longer want to visit me." As he said this, Sensei smiled sadly.

It all struck me as very odd. But my intention in visiting him was not to study or analyze Sensei, so I let it pass. In retrospect, I particularly treasure my memory of that response to Sensei. Because of it, I think, I was able to achieve the real human intimacy with him that I later did. If I had chosen to turn the cool and analytical eye of curiosity on Sensei’s heart, it would inexorably have snapped the bond of sympathy between us. At the time, of course, I was too young to be aware of any of this. Perhaps that is precisely where its true value lies. If I had made the mistake of responding less than guilelessly, who knows what might have befallen our relationship? I shudder to think of it. The scrutiny of an analytical eye was something Sensei always particularly dreaded.

Мабуть, пам'ятаєш, як ти часто сперечався зі мною про сучасні ідеї. І, мабуть, добре знаєш моє ставлення до них. Я не ганив твоїх поглядів, але й не знаходив у душі поваги до них. Твої міркування не мали виразного тла, та й ти замолодий, щоб мати своє минуле. Іноді я сміявсь. А часом бачив, що ти невдоволений. Врешті ти почав наполягати, щоб я розкрив перед тобою власне минуле, як книжку з малюнками. Тоді я вперше відчув повагу до тебе. Бо ти безоглядно засвідчив свою рішучість вихопити з моєї душі щось живе. Хотів розпанахати моє серце й сьорбнути теплої крови. Тоді я ще був живий. І не хотів умирати. Тому я відповів: хай колись. Тепер же я сам розпанахую своє серце і його кров'ю хлюпаю в твоє лице. Буду радий, якщо в годину, коли перестане битися моє серце, в твоїх грудях зажевріє нове життя.

Pewnego dnia w sezonie oglądania kwiatów wiśni wybrałem się z Senseiem do parku Ueno. Zobaczyliśmy tam uroczą młodą parę. Oboje szczęśliwi, przytuleni do siebie spacerowali pod ukwiecionymi drzewami. Ponieważ działo się to w miejscu publicznym, wielu ludzi - zamiast oglądać kwiaty - zwracało wzrok w ich stronę i przypatrywało im się uważnie. - Wyglądają jak nowożeńcy - rzekł Sensei. - Bardzo im chyba ze sobą dobrze - odpowiedziałem. Sensei nawet się nie uśmiechnął. Specjalnie, aby nie widzieć tej pary, skierował się w przeciwną stronę. A następnie zapytał: - Czy byłeś już kiedyś zakochany? Odpowiedziałem, że nie. - A czy nie chciałbyś się zakochać? Nic nie odpowiedziałem. - Nie twierdzisz chyba, że nie chciałbyś? - Nie. - Zadrwiłeś sobie z tej młodej pary, prawda? Lecz w tej drwinie zabrzmiała nuta niezadowolenia. Pragniesz miłości, ale jej nie znajdujesz. - Czy tak to zabrzmiało? - Oczywiście. Ten, kto by sam zaznał szczęścia miłości, mówiłby o tych dwojgu cieplej. Ale... słuchaj, miłość jest zbrodnią! Czy ty tego nie rozumiesz? Zaskoczył mnie. Nie odpowiedziałem nic.