“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.”

The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.

My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.

What labels me, negates me.

In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.

And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?

I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.

Why bother remembering a past that cannot be made into a present?

In the secretly blushing cheek is reflected the glow of the heart.

My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.

What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?

I believe it is important that we Japanese write a constitution for ourselves that would reflect the shape of the country we consider desirable in the 21st century.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

Human desire tends to be insatiable.

I think that in the essence of human civilization, we have the desire to become rich without limit, by taking the lives of other creatures.

I think that in the essence of human civilization, we have the desire to become rich without limit, by taking the lives of other creatures.

The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments

All men by nature desire knowledge.