The Setting Sun Quotes

“It’s a faculty absolutely unique to man—having secrets.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Item. A hand in plaster. This was the right hand of Venus. A hand like a dahlia blossom, a pure white hand, mounted on a stand. But if you looked at it carefully you could tell how this pure white, delicate hand, with whorl-less finger tips and unmarked palms, expressed, so pitifully that even the beholder was stabbed with pain, the shame intense enough to make Venus stop her breath; in the gesture was implicit the moment when Venus' full nakedness was seen by a man, when she twisted away her body, flushed all over with the prickling warmth of her shock, the whirlwind of her shame, and the tragedy of her nudity. Unfortunately, this was only a piece of bric-à-brac. The clerk valued it at fifty sen.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I wonder how it would be if I let go and yielded myself to real depravity.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“You do not know that you are loved.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“We all remain children, no matter how much time goes by. We don't understand anything.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Doesn't that mean in effect that i have no choice but suicide?”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“All men are alike... I believe that all of the so-called "anxiety of the age" — men frightened by one another, every known principle violated, effort mocked, happiness denied, beauty defiled, honor dragged down — originates in this one incredible expression.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Tahun lalu tak terjadi apa-apa
Tahun sebelumnya pun tak terjadi apa-apa
Dan tahun sebelum tahun sebelumnya juga tak terjadi apa-apa.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“A sensation of helplessness, as if it were utterly impossible to go on living. Painful waves beat relentlessly on my heart, as after a thunderstorm the white clouds frantically scud across the sky. A terrible emotion — shall I call it an apprehension — wrings my heart only to release it, makes my pulse falter, and chokes my breath. At times everything grows misty and dark before my eyes, and I feel that the strength of my whole body is oozing away through my finger tips.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I was conscripted during the war and even made to do coolie labor. The sneakers I now wear when I work in the fields are the ones the Army issued me. That was the first time in my life I had put such things on my feet, but they were surprisingly comfortable, and when I walked around the garden wearing them I felt as if I could understand the light-heartedness of the bird or animal that walks barefoot on the ground. That is the only pleasant memory I have of the war. What a dreary business the war was.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Oh, life is too painful, the reality that confirms the universal belief that it is best not to be born. Thus everyday, from morning to night, I wait in despair for something. I wish I could be glad that I was born, that I am alive, that there are people and a world.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Bagaimanapun kau bisa meyakini satu hal: seorang lelaki musti berpura-pura demi meneruskan hidup.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn’t write a novel, people said I couldn’t write. When I acted like a liar, they called me a liar. When I acted like a rich man, they started the rumor I was rich. When I feigned indifference, they classed me as the indifferent type. But when I inadvertently groaned because I was really in pain, they started the rumor that I was faking suffering. The world is out of joint.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Kurbanlar. gerçek bir ahlak döneminin kurbanları. Aslında her ikimiz de buyuz. Bir yerlerde devrim patlak verecek: Ama eski ahlak ölçüsü yolumuzu tıkayarak yeryüzünde değişmez biçimde duracak. Oysa denizde ne dalgalar patlar. Devrime katılmadan dipteki sular sakin, uyanık ama uyuşmuş gibi durur.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“O insanlar kusurluydular. Ama belki de benim aşkım için yaşadığım gibi onlar da bu biçimde yaşayarak ayakta durabiliyorlardı. Şayet insan, hayata geldiğinde şu ya da bu biçimde yaşamaya devam edecekse sona varmak için büründüğü görünüm çirkin bile olsa küçümsenmemelidir. Hayatını yaşamak. Yaşamak. Muazzam bir girişim, insanı endişeye boğacak kadar.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I want to believe this implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“What feelings do you suppose a man has when he realizes that he will never know happiness or glory as long as he lives? Hard work. All that amounts to is food for the wild beasts of hunger.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“They say that people who like summer flowers die in the summer. I wonder if it's true.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I felt my heart would burst with longing for Tokyo especially when it grew dark. Then everything seemed to go blank before me. It wasn't an ordinary sickness. God killed me, and only after he had made me into someone entirely different from the person I had been, did he call me back to life.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I wanted to beg her pardon and to cling to her, but my hands were
dirty from my work in the fields”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“not even my suicide could have served as sufficient apology”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Even such uncivilized actions seem not only charming but strangely erotic when Mother performs them. The real things are apt to be deviant.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Even I found some things rather objectionable when I read Rosa Luxemburg's book [Introduction to Economics], but, given the sort of person I am, the experience on the whole was one of profound interest. The subject matter of her book is generally considered to be economics, but if it is read as economics, it is boring beyond belief. It contains nothing but exceedingly obvious platitudes. It may be, of course, that I have no understanding of economics. Be that as it may, the subject holds not the slightest interest for me. A science which is postulated on the assumption that human beings are avaricious and will remain 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. And yet as I read this book, I felt a strange excitement for quite another reason the sheer courage the author demonstrated in tearing apart without any hesitation all manner of conventional ideas.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“I wish I could be glad that I was born, that I am alive, that there are people in the world.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Philosophy? Lies. Principles? Lies. Ideals? Lies. Order? Lies. Sincerity? Truth? Purity? All lies.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“Poverty is nothing. As long as you love me, all I want is to spend my whole life by your side. But you love Naoji more than you love me, don't you?”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“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

“Poverty is nothing. As long as you love me, all I want is to spend my whole life by your side.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“This was the first time in my life that I had become aware of the existence of the wall of despair built of all the many things in the world before which human strength is helpless.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun

“It's no use. I'm going. I cannot think of the slightest reason why I should have to go on living.
Only those who wish to go on living should.
Just as a man has the right to live, he ought also to have the right to die.
There is nothing new in what I am thinking: it is simply that people have the most inexplicable aversion to this obvious - not to say primitive - idea and refuse to come out with it plainly.
Those who wish to go on living can always manage to survive whatever obstacles there may be. That is splendid of them, and I daresay that what people call the glory of mankind is comprised of just such a thing. But I am convinced that dying is not a sin.
It is painful for the plant which is myself to live in the atmosphere and light of this world. Somewhere an element is lacking which would permit me to continue. I am wanting. It has been all I could do to stay alive up to now.”
― Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun