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Natsume Sōseki Biography

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“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.”

SelfEvilIndividualFreedomEthicsJapanModernismContingencyMeijiAntebellumFin De SiecleThe Crunch
Book:Kokoro
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“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.”

SadnessLoneliness
Book:Kokoro
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“È la poesia, è la pittura a svellere da questo mondo le preoccupazioni che gravano sulla nostra vita, a proiettare davanti ai nostri occhi un mondo gradito. O anche la musica e la scultura. Anzi, più precisamente, non v’è neppure necessità di proiettarlo. Basta concepirne l’immagine perché nasca la poesia, scaturiscano i versi. Anche senza fermare sulla carta l’ispirazione percepiamo in fondo all’anima il tintinnio cristallino delle sue gemme. Anche senza spalmare sul cavalletto il rosso e l’azzurro, lo splendore dei colori appare spontaneamente agli occhi della nostra anima. Basta riuscire a vedere così il mondo in cui viviamo, questo impuro e volgare mondo terrestre, e a riprodurlo limpido e sereno nella macchina fotografica della nostra mente. Perciò anche un poeta muto che non ha mai scritto un verso, un pittore senza colori che non ha mai dipinto neppure un piccolo ritaglio di seta, per come riescono a vedere il mondo, a liberarsi dalle sue passioni, a entrare e a uscire in quell’universo di purezza, a costruire... (less)”

ArtArtistArtePittura
Book:Kusamakura
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“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.”

Human
Book:Kokoro
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“He had always been a middle-of-the-road sort. He had never submitted word for word to anyone's command, but neither had he passionately rebelled against anyone's advice. Depending upon the interpretation, this was the posture of a schemer or the strategy of a born vacillator. If he himself had been confronted with either of these charges, he could not have avoided wondering if they might not be true. But in large part, this was to be attributed neither to artifice nor to vacillation but rather to the flexibility of his vision, which allowed him to look in both directions at once. To this day, it was precisely this capacity that had always dampened his determination to advance singlemindedly toward a particular goal. It was not unusual for him to stand paralyzed in the midst of a situation. His posture of upholding the status quo was not the result of poverty of thought, but the product of lucid judgment; but he had never understood this truth about himself until he acted upon his beliefs with inviolable courage. The situation with Michiyo was precisely a case in point.”

ActionJudgmentIndividualismWillCompelledCompulsionParalysisPath Of Least ResistanceVacillation
Book:And Then
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“Everything about my experience was new and intense, but the new, intense things were somewhere far away. Or, rather, I felt as though a thick partition had formed between last night and today, marking a sharp distinction between the two. If the mere appearance and disappearance of the sun is going to disrupt the continuity of my heart this way, then I become strangely unsure of who I am myself. Life is like a dream.”

HeartSelfDreamPersonalityExistentialismNight And Day
Book:The Miner
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“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.”

SelfIndividualLonelinessEgoShadowBetrayalPsychologicalExistentialismJapanModernismDelayed GratificationMeiji
Book:Kokoro
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“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.”

LonelinessAgingLife Lesson
Book:Kokoro
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“«Deve sapere che si è offerto come volontario, e così gli è arrivato l’ordine di arruolamento per la guerra». Il vecchio mi annuncia, invece dell’interessato, il destino del giovane che dovrebbe partire entro pochi giorni per le pianure della Manciuria. Ho sbagliato a credere che in questo villaggio primaverile, immerso come un sogno in un’atmosfera di poesia, vi siano solo gli uccelli a gemere, i fiori a cadere, le acque termali a scaturire. Il mondo reale valica le montagne, varca i mari e giunge fino a questi solitari villaggi, abitati dai tempi antichi solo dai discendenti dei Taira18. Forse arriverà il momento in cui dalle vene di questo ragazzo sgorgherà una decimillesima parte della marea di sangue che tingerà le immense e solitarie pianure del nord. Forse spirerà come fumo dalla punta della lunga spada appesa al suo fianco. E questo giovane sta seduto vicino a un pittore che non riconosce alla vita umana alcun valore se non quello di sognare.”

WarGuerraPacifismPacifismo
Book:Kusamakura
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“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?”

LiteraturePoliticsFreedomNovelModernEnlightenmentTraditionWesternJapanIndividualismEgoismSelf CenterednessMeijiTurn Of The CenturyFin De SieclePolitical LiberationSocial Hegemony
Book:Sanshirō
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“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.”

LiteraturePoliticsFreedomNovelEnlightenmentWesternJapanMeijiTurn Of The CenturyFin De SieclePolitical LiberationSocial Hegemony
Book:Sanshirō
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“According to his thinking, man was not born for a particular purpose. Quite the opposite: a purpose developed only with the birth of an individual. To objectively fabricate a purpose at the outset and to apply it to a human being was to rob him at birth of freedom of action. Hence, purpose was something that the individual had to make for himself. But no one, no matter who, could freely create a purpose. This was because the purpose of one's existence was as good as announced to the universe by the course of that existence itself. Starting from this premise, Daisuke held that one's natural activities constituted one's natural purposes. A man walked because he wanted to. Then walking became his purpose. He thought because he wanted to. Then, thinking became his purpose. Just as to walk or to think for a particular purpose meant the degradation of walking and thinking, so to establish an external purpose and to act to fulfill it meant the degradation of action. Accordingly, those who used the sum of their actions as a means to an end were in effect destroying the purpose of their own existence.”

ActionPurposeNatureFreedomExistenceGoalsFabricationSelf DeterminismSelf PurposeWilling And Doing
Book:And Then
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“...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.”

JapanModernismJapanese LiteratureMeijiTurn Of The Century
Book:Sanshirō
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“Daisuke was of course equipped with conversation that, even if they went further, would allow him to retreat as if nothing had happened. He had always wondered at the conversations recorded in Western novels, for to him they were too bald, too self indulgent, and moreover, too unsubtly rich. However they read in the original, he thought they reflected a taste that could not be translated into Japanese. Therefore, he had not the slightest intention of using imported phrases to develop his relationship with Michiyo. Between the two of them at least, ordinary words sufficed perfectly well. But the danger was of slipping from point A to point B without realizing it. Daisuke managed to stand his ground only by a hair's breadth. When he left, Michiyo saw him to the entranceway and said, "Do come again, please? It's so lonely.”

CultureIndividualLanguageWestEastIsolationJapanIndividualismObjectivitySubjectivityWorld ViewLost In TranslationMeiji
Book:And Then
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“As a matter of fact, country people tend to be worse than city people. You said just now that there was no one amongst your relatives that you would consider particularly bad. You seem to be under the impression that there is a special breed of bad humans. There is no such thing as a stereotype bad man in this world. 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.”

Asian Literature
Book:Kokoro
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