56 Quotes by Sōseki Natsume

The artist, even when he imitates nature, always feels himself to be not a slave but a demigod.

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.

In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don’t know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying. But maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, presuming that other people are a mess just because I’m put together in such a disorderly way. If so, I should apologize.

I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than those words which express thoughts rationally conceived.

What would you do,” I said, “if I pushed you into the sea?” K did not move. Without looking back, he said: “That would be pleasant. Please do.

Indeed, humans are the least reliable in this world.

And when its difficulties intensify, you find yourself longing to leave that world and dwell in some easier one- and then, when you understand at last the difficulties will dog you wherever you may live, this is when poetry and art are born...

When they encounter somebody who’s honest and pure-hearted, they look down on him and say he’s nothing but a kid, a botchan.

It is a much wiser policy to plant acre after acre of orchids and lead one’s life in solitude encompassed by their sheltering stems, than to surround oneself with the hoi-polloi and so court the same pointless misanthropic disgust as befell Timon of Athens.