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181 " 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 , No Longer Human
182 " There are some people whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes. "
183 " A science which is postulated on the assumption that human beings are avaricious through all eternity is utterly devoid of point (whether in problems of distribution or any other aspect) to a person who is not avaricious. "
― Osamu Dazai
184 " Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relations between Horiki and myself were undoubtedly those of friendship. "
185 " A mere smile can determine a woman's fate. It is frightening. Fascinatingly so. I have to be careful. "
― Osamu Dazai , Schoolgirl
186 " [...] Just because a person has a title doesn't make him an aristocrat. Some people are great aristocrats who have no other title than the one that nature has bestowed on them, and others like us, who have nothing but titles, are closer to being pariahs than aristocrats. "
― Osamu Dazai , The Setting Sun
187 " When you've got the devil's own luck, you're immune from the usual run of disasters. Such people must be utilized. "
188 " I have tried insofar as possible to avoid getting involved in the sordid complications of human beings. I have been afraid of being sucked down into their bottomless whirlpool. "
189 " I have never been able tomeet anyone without an accompaniment of painfulsmiles, the buffoonery of defeat. "
190 " Most people would take me for over forty. "
191 " Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue "
192 " I had learned bit by bit the art of meeting people with a straight face—no, that’s not true: I have never been able to meet anyone without an accompaniment of painful smiles, the buffoonery of defeat. What I had acquired was the technique of stammering somehow, almost in a daze, the necessary small talk. "
193 " I simply don’t understand. I have not the remotest clue what the nature or extent of my neighbor’s woes can be. Practical troubles, griefs that can be assuaged if only there is enough to eat— these may be the most intense of all burning hells, horrible enough to blast to smithereens my ten misfortunes, but that is precisely what I don’t understand: if my neighbors manage to survive without killing themselves, without going mad, maintaining an interest in political parties, not yielding to despair, resolutely pursuing the fight for existence, can their griefs really be genuine? Am I wrong in thinking that these people have become such complete egoists and are so convinced of the normality of their way of life that they have never once doubted themselves? "
194 " The older and wiser heads of the world have always described revolution and love to us as the two most foolish and loathsome of human activities. Before the war, even during the war, we were convinced of it. Since the defeat, however, we no longer trust the older and wiser heads and have come to feel that the opposite of whatever they say is the real truth about life. Revolution and love are in fact the best, most pleasurable things in the world, and we realize it is precisely because they are so good that the older and wiser heads have spitefully fobbed off on us their sour grapes of a lie. This I want to believe implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution. "
195 " Disqualified as a human being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being. "
196 " If he wears a tag, doesn't that make him harmless? It sounds rather sweet, like a kitten with a bell around its neck. A dissolute character without a tag is what frightens me. "
197 " Human beings are like that, though. They’ll do the most unbelievably cruel things when you least expect it. "
― Osamu Dazai , Otogizōshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu
198 " I suddenly wondered whether Mother might not actually be happy now, whether the sensation of happiness might not be something like faintly glittering gold sunken at the bottom of the river of sorrow. The feeling of that strange pale light when once on as exceeded all the bounds of unhappiness - if that can be called a sensation of happiness, the Emperor, my mother, and even I myself may be said to be happy now. "
199 " There's something about you that smells a little of a Christian priest. I find it offensive. "
200 " Did you cry?”“No. I didn’t cry ... I just kept thinking that when human beings get that way, they’re no good for anything. "