Top 280 Osamu Dazai Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “It seems that when people are in a state of euphoria, they don’t always notice the suffering of others.”

— Osamu Dazai

152. “Even the servants, when asked by my mother about the meeting, answered as if it were their spontaneous thought, that it had been really interesting. These were the self-same servants who had been bitterly complaining on the way home that political meetings are the most boring thing in the world.”

— Osamu Dazai

153. “The source of our laughter is the small stone that tumbled into a corner of Pandora’s box.”

— Osamu Dazai

154. “There’s something about you that smells a little of a Christian priest. I find it offensive.”

— Osamu Dazai

155. “My heart had melted into something akin to a sensation of happiness, peace of mind one might even say, at the realization that I had now reached the very bottom of agony.”

— Osamu Dazai

156. “For the first time in my life I realized what a horrible, miserable, salvationless hell it is to be without money.”

— Osamu Dazai

157. “They called me by my first name and bought me drinks.”

— Osamu Dazai

158. “If I were to experience failure upon failure day after day – nothing but total embarrassment – then perhaps I’d develop some semblance of dignity as a result. But no, I would somehow illogically twist even such failures, gloss over them smoothly, so that it would seem like they had a perfectly good theory behind them. And I would have no qualms about putting on a desperate show to do so.”

— Osamu Dazai

159. “The color of this sky, what would you call it? Rose? Flame? Iridescent? The color of angel’s wings? Or a huge temple? No, it is none of these things. It is much more sublime.”

— Osamu Dazai

160. “It isn’t that I dislike artists, but I can’t stand anyone who puts on those ponderous airs of a man of character.”

— Osamu Dazai

161. “During the course of my life I have wished innumerable times that I might meet with a violent death, but I have never once desired to kill anybody. I thought that in killing a dreaded adversary I might actually be bringing him happiness.”

— Osamu Dazai

162. “It occurred to me that prison life might actually be pleasanter than groaning away my sleepless nights in hellish dread of the “realities of life” as led by human beings.”

— Osamu Dazai

163. “I was a petal quivering in the slightest breeze, about to fall any moment. Even the slightest insult made me think of dying.”

— Osamu Dazai

164. “Around that time, I lost interest in college. I could only see blackness before me, I didn’t know what to do. It was no easy matter to prevent my father from criticizing my loafing around the house and my mother from seeing me as unworthy.”

— Osamu Dazai

165. “A leader pompously voices his own views without the least hesitation. Do as I say, he proclaims. Then you, as well as your family and your village and your country and the whole world too will be secure. Gesturing grandly, he roars on about how disaster will come from ignoring him. But then, as has happened time after time, his favorite prostitute gives him the cold shoulder, and this makes him cry out desperately for the abolition of her kind.”

— Osamu Dazai

166. “There’s nothing wrong in being a monster, is there? As long as we can stay alive?”

— Osamu Dazai

167. “From here it’s hundreds of miles to home.”

— Osamu Dazai

168. “The “world,” after all, was still a place of bottomless horror.”

— Osamu Dazai

169. “I had been intimidated by the fear that if I declined something offered me, a yawning crevice would open between the other person’s heart and myself which could never be mended through all eternity.”

— Osamu Dazai

170. “If you don’t give a damn what the rest of the world is up to, you can be alone for a hundred years – a thousand years – with no difficulty whatsoever.”

— Osamu Dazai

171. “The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people.”

— Osamu Dazai

172. “Not long afterwards we were married. The joy I obtained as a result of this action was not necessarily great or savage, but the suffering which ensued was staggering – so far surpassing what I had imagined that even describing it as “horrendous” would not quite cover it. The “world,” after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a single then-and-there decision.”

— Osamu Dazai

173. “Just to see all the books lining the shelves would lighten my mood as if by magic. Of course, I didn’t go to bookstores just to read articles on anatomy. I went because any book gave me comfort and solace at the time.”

— Osamu Dazai

174. “Communal living had proved quite impossible for me. It gave me chills just to hear such words as “the ardor of youth” or “youthful pride”: I could not by any stretch of the imagination soak myself in “college spirit.”

— Osamu Dazai

175. “I wanted to write only what I wanted to write.”

— Osamu Dazai

176. “In terms of sealing your fate, there’s no difference between turning right on a whim and turning right because you’ve come to some momentous resolve. Either way, it can’t be undone.”

— Osamu Dazai

177. “Human beings are like that, though. They’ll do the most unbelievably cruel things when you least expect it.”

— Osamu Dazai

178. “I drew with extremely excessively depressed emotions, deliberately penning each line, only to earn money for drink.”

— Osamu Dazai

179. “You see, Take-san loves you, Skylark. That’s why she cried,” she said and squeezed even harder.”

— Osamu Dazai

180. “Regardless of the cause, those in charge always seemed to be seeking power and glory for themselves.”

— Osamu Dazai

181. “To deceive someone who trusts you is to enter a hell that can take you to the brink of madness.”

— Osamu Dazai

182. “After that, there is nothing more to say. We will move straight ahead at the perfect pace, neither too fast nor too slow. Where does this road lead? Perhaps, you should ask a growing vine. The vine may answer. “I don’t know. But I grow toward the sunlight.”

— Osamu Dazai

183. “Forced explanations often end in a distortion of lies.”

— Osamu Dazai

184. “Life itself is bound to be dreary if you carry a lot of baggage about.”

— Osamu Dazai

185. “I hated school and never read a textbook. I only read entertaining books.”

— Osamu Dazai

186. “We continued to walk without talking. I thought that from now on I will carefully look at the faces of women I encounter, and to some degree, the innocent, transparent beauty of Mabo will appear in all of their faces. Women have become womanly. But the change is not in the women before the world war. The new womanliness has experienced the suffering of war.”

— Osamu Dazai

187. “I would far prefer to be told simply to go and die. It’s straightforward. But people almost never say, “Die!” Paltry, prudent hypocrites!”

— Osamu Dazai

188. “To begin with, I believe a fatal contradiction lies between women’s right to vote and lipstick. Those guys usually aren’t popular with the ladies. Without a doubt, this is a plan for revenge.”

— Osamu Dazai

189. “Bagaimanapun kau bisa meyakini satu hal: seorang lelaki musti berpura-pura demi meneruskan hidup.”

— Osamu Dazai

190. “Of course, I intended to die without telling a soul about my illness. Without anyone knowing, I would secretly deteriorate. Actually, I felt that there was nothing else I could do. I had no alternatives. Shouldn’t I be resolved to die as a peasant in my horribly confused final circumstance? I had no excuses. It was not because life suddenly became precious, but the forced pretense until yesterday had disappeared.”

— Osamu Dazai

191. “American planes circled the clear blue sky of late fall. We stood in front of the Miyoshino-style building and looked up at them. “They’re flying around in vain.” “Yeah,” Mabo said with a smile.”

— Osamu Dazai

192. “The “literary world” was a place I was grateful for, and blessed, I thought, were those who could spend their lives there.”

— Osamu Dazai

193. “As a child I had absolutely no notion of what others, even members of my own family, might be suffering or what they were thinking. I was aware only of my own unspeakable fears and embarrassments. Before anyone realized it, I had become an accomplished clown, a child who never spoke a single truthful word.”

— Osamu Dazai

194. “I entered this Health Dojo because the war ended and life suddenly became precious.”

— Osamu Dazai

195. “Around that time, I lost interest in college. I could only see blackness.”

— Osamu Dazai

196. “Doesn’t that mean in effect that i have no choice but suicide?”

— Osamu Dazai

197. “I have suffered much at the hands of human society. Forgive me if I seem overly suspicious.”

— Osamu Dazai

198. “I slept quietly so that I would breathe without coughing, and felt a curious indifference. I even felt like I had been waiting for that night for a long time. The words “heart’s desire” came to mind.”

— Osamu Dazai

199. “Is this what all you refined gentlemen are like – wishing and pining and never acting?”

— Osamu Dazai

200. “But the planes have a new elegant shape. Not one unnecessary ornament.” “Yes,” said Mabo softly and watched the planes fly off through the sky with a childlike innocence. “A form with no unneeded ornaments is nice.”

— Osamu Dazai