With one foot over the threshold of the land of death, I had suddenly turned back. I returned to what was for me hell on earth. [...] But now one ray… - Fumiko Kaneko

I got disgusted with the widespread desire among socialists to get their names in the paper.

Nature! Nature in which there is no deceit! Simple and free, you do not warp a person’s soul as humans do. I wanted to cry out my thanks to the mountain with all my heart … until I remembered the way that I lived; then I felt like crying. And cry I did, on and on, until there were no tears left. This day in the mountain was, after all, the only time I had to find myself. This was my one and only day of liberation.

By nature human beings should be equal. And yet human beings who are equal by nature have been made unequal because of the presence of the entity called the emperor. The emperor is supposed to be august and exalted. Yet his photograph shows that he is just like us commoners. He has two eyes, one mouth, legs to walk with and hands to work with. But he doesn’t use his hands to work and his legs to walk. That the only difference. The reason I deny the necessity of the emperor rises from my belief that human beings are equal.