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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.”
― Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro

“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

“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?”
― Natsume Sōseki, �����Բ��󾱰�ō

“It was Daisuke's conviction that all morality traced its origins to social realities. He believed there could be no greater confusion of cause and effect than to attempt to conform social reality to a rigidly predetermined notion of morality. Accordingly, he found the ethical education conducted by lecture in Japanese schools utterly meaningless. In the schools, students were either instructed in the old morality or crammed with a morality suited to the average European. For an unfortunate people beset by the fierce appetites of life, this amounted to nothing more than vain, empty talk. When the recipients of this education saw society before their eyes, they would recall those lectures and burst out laughing. Or else they would feel that they had been made fools of. In Daisuke's case it was not just school; he had received the most rigorous and least functional education from his father. Thanks to this, he had at one time experienced acute anguish stemming from contradictions. Daisuke even felt bitter over it.”
― Natsume Sōseki, And Then

“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

“...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.”
― Natsume Sōseki, �����Բ��󾱰�ō

“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.”
― Natsume Sōseki, �����Բ��󾱰�ō

“That Seigo could go into geisha houses, accept luncheon invitations, drop in at the Club, see people off at Shimabashi, meet them at Yokohama, run out to Oiso to humor the elders—that he could put in his appearance at large gatherings from morning to evening without seeming either triumphant or dejected—this must be because he was thoroughly accustomed to this kind of life, thought Daisuke; it was probably like the jellyfish's floating in the sea and not finding it salty.”
― Natsume Sōseki, And Then

“You will tell me that there always exists a chasm between the world depicted in novels and films and the world that people actually live in. It is the chasm between the world mediated by art and the world unmediated by art, formless and drab. You are absolutely right. The gap that my mother felt was not necessarily any deeper than the gap felt by a European girl who loved books and films. Yet there is one critical difference. For in my mother's case, the chasm between the world of art and real life also symbolized something more: the asymmetrical relationship I mentioned earlier—the asymmetrical relationship between those who live only in a universal temporality and those who live in both a universal and a particular one.

To make this discussion a little more concrete, let me introduce a character named Francoise. Francoise is a young Parisienne living before World War II. Like my mother, she loves reading books and watching films. Also like my mother, she lives in a small apartment with her mother, who is old, shabby looking, and illiterate. One day Francoise, full of artistic aspirations, writes an autobiographical novel. It is the tale of her life torn between the world of art and the world of reality. (Not an original tale, I must say.) The novel is well received in France. Several hundred Japanese living in Japan read this novel in French, and one of them decides to translate it into Japanese. My mother reads the novel. She identifies with the heroine and says to herself, "This girl is just like me!" Moved, my mother, also full of artistic aspirations, writes her own autobiography. That novel is well received in Japan but is not translated into French—or any other European language, for that matter. The number of Europeans who read Japanese is just too small. Therefore, only Japanese readers can share the plight of my mother's life. For other readers in the world, it's as if her novel never existed. It's as if she herself never existed. Even if my mother had written her novel first, Francoise would never have read it and been moved by it.”
― Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in the Age of English

“The independence of a nation springs from the independent spirit of its citizens”
― Alan Macfarlane

“Hirota feels strongly drawn toward nature and the natural, is hyper-sensitive to the artificial—particularly that most cramped and constraining man-made creation, society—and does his best to avoid it.”
― Natsume Sōseki, �����Բ��󾱰�ō

“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.”
― Natsume Sōseki, And Then

“Life is a tiring business indeed.

Soy sauce runs out. Milk runs out. Dishwashing detergent runs out. Lancôme lipsticks—I thought I had stockpiled several years' worth—run out. Dust underneath the dining table becomes dust balls. Newspapers and magazines pile up, and so does laundry. E-mail and junk mail keep coming. When occasion demands, I make myself presentable and I present myself. I listen to my sister's same old complaints on the phone. I withdraw money for my elderly mother, whose tongue works fine but whose body is a mess. I contact her caseworker. And now I have reached a stage in life when my own health is prone to betray me.”
― Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in the Age of English

“And yet, as you all know, joining humanity is never a simple matter. By beginning to live the same temporality as Westerners, the Japanese now had to live two temporalities simultaneously. On the one hand, there was Time with a capital "T," which flows in the West. On the other hand, there was time with a small "t," which flows in Japan. Moreover, from that point on, the latter could exist only in relation to the former. It could no longer exist independently, yet it could not be the same as the other, either. If I, as a Japanese, find this new historical situation a bit tragic, it's not because Japanese people now had a live in two temporalities. It's rather because as a result of having to do so, they had no choice but to enter the asymmetrical relationship that had marked and continues to mark the modern world—the asymmetrical relationship between the West and the non-West, which is tantamount, however abstractly, to the asymmetrical relationship between what is universal and all the rest that is merely particular.”
― Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in the Age of English

“No importa tanto la diferenciación entre el progreso representado por el ahorro de energía (que simplifica la vida cotidiana) o por la expansión de energía (que potencia nuestras aspiraciones o "aficiones" naturales), sino el acento puesto en la excesiva velocidad con que estas transformaciones han afectado al Japón, como consecuencia de la procedencia externa de los estímulos que, al no ser fruto de una secuencia generado intrínsecamente, ha obligado a una apresurada (y por ello superficial) asimilación de los cambios (muchos en muy poco tiempo), lo cual ha llegado a provocar una auténtica "angustia existencial.”
― Natsume Sōseki, My Individualism & The Philosophical Foundations of Literature

“Las conclusiones más significativas se refieren a la necesidad de que cada individuo se forme por sí mismo su propia opinión de la realidad sin aceptar acríticamente la autoridad de los maestros occidentales, el deber moral de usar los propios dones o bienes (inteligencia, poder, dinero) teniendo siempre presente una proyección social, la obligación de respetar la libertad de los demás al tiempo que se defiende la propia o la posibilidad de cohonestar la (prioritaria) autoexigencia personal con otros valores respetables como el servicio a la nación. Al final, el discurso se transforma, a partir de una advertencia a los jóvenes japoneses de 1914, en un alegato a favor de la independencia personal, de la libertad y de la tolerancia, es decir, en una afirmación de valores humanistas de significado universal.”
― Natsume Sōseki, My Individualism & The Philosophical Foundations of Literature

“In order for Japan to become an equal member of the international community, the western perception of time had to be accepted. The western calendar was
adopted with much complaint in 1872, with the decision that the third day of the succeeding twelfth month would become the first day of 1873. The decree added:
On this day a ceremony…will be held, and the Emperor will inform the sun goddess and the imperial ancestors of the change��. The day will be divided into 24 hours instead of twelve two-hour periods, as hitherto.”
― Jilly Traganou, The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan

“With each retelling, Saigo’s composure grew greater, his soliloquy to Beppu longer, and the poignancy of the moment more intense. Because Saigo had come to represent samurai valor, his death had to represent samurai tradition. Physiology notwithstanding, tradition demanded that Saigo sit on a shattered hip and serenely ask Beppu to help him die. Saigo had become a legend, and the Japanese media decided to print the legend, not the man.”
― Mark J. Ravina, The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori