It is true, I suppose, that nobody finds it exactly pleasant to be criticized or shouted at, but I see in the face of the human being raging at me a … - Osamu Dazai

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It is true, I suppose, that nobody finds it exactly pleasant to be criticized or shouted at, but I see in the face of the human being raging at me a wild animal in its true colors, one more horrible than any lion, crocodile or dragon. People normally seem to be hiding this true nature, but an occasion will arise (as when an ox sedately ensconced in a grassy meadow suddenly lashes out with its tail to kill the horsefly on its flank) when anger makes them reveal in a flash human nature in all its horror. Seeing this happen has always induced in me a fear great enough to make my hair stand on end, and at the thought that this nature might be one of the prerequisites for survival as a human being, I have come close to despairing of myself.

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About Osamu Dazai

Shūji Tsushima (津島 修治) known by his pen name Osamu Dazai (太宰 治), (June 19, 1909 – June 13, 1948) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as The Setting Sun (斜陽, Shayō) and No Longer Human (人間失格, Ningen Shikkaku), are considered modern-day classics in Japan. No Longer Human (his last finished book) is his most popular work outside Japan. With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai’s stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His books also bring about awareness to a number of important topics such as human nature, mental illness, social relationships, and postwar Japan. He attempted suicide several times throughout his life and finally died in a suicide pact with a woman named Tomie Yamazaki (山崎富栄).

Also Known As

Native Name: 太宰 治
Alternative Names: Tsushima Shuji
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Additional quotes by Osamu Dazai

It was not so much shame that I experienced as the feeling that the actual world was an unfamiliar organism utterly unlike the world of my imagination. I was assailed by a sensation of desolation more intense than anything I had previously known, as if I had been abandoned at dusk in an autumnal wasteland where no answering sound would ever come, however often I called. Is that, I wonder, what is meant by the pat phrase "disappointed love"?

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Just when I was beginning to forget, that bird of ill-omen came flapping my way, to rip open with its beak the wounds of memory. All at once shame over the past and the recollection of sin unfolded themselves before my eyes and, seized by a terror so great it made me want to shriek, I could not sit still a moment longer. “How about a drink?” I asked.

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