Home > Work > Kokoro

Kokoro QUOTES

Kokoro QUOTES

1 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

2 " To tell you the truth, I used to consider it a disgrace to be found ignorant by other people. But now, I find that I am not ashamed of knowing less than others, and I'm less inclined to force myself to read books. In short, I have grown old and decrepit. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

3 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

4 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

5 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

6 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

7 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

8 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

9 " I often laughed, and you often gave me a dissatisfied look, till you pressed me to unfold my past before you as if it were a roll of pictures. It was then I felt respect for you. Because you unreservedly showed me your resolution to catch something alive in my being, and to sip the warm blood running in my body, by cutting my heart. At that time, I was still living, and did not want to die. So I rejected your request, promising to satisfy you some day. 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

10 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

11 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

12 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

13 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

14 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

15 " Sometimes when I can no longer endure the strain, I beg him to tell me what is wrong with me and help me to correct it. Then he always says that I have nothing to correct, assuring me that it is he who is at fault. And I become sadder and sadder until I weep with the desire to know my fault. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

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

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

17 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

18 " 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. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

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

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro

20 " 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 stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things. "

― Natsume Sōseki , Kokoro