42 Japanese Quotes For Inspiration

In the rich tapestry of Japanese culture, words carry profound wisdom and timeless beauty. Whether drawn from ancient proverbs, the simplicity of Haiku, or the philosophies of esteemed thinkers, these expressions have transcended generations to inspire and uplift. Our carefully curated collection of the top 42 Japanese quotes aims to share this reservoir of inspiration. From the poetic to the profound, these quotes offer glimpses into life’s deeper meanings and are sure to resonate with anyone seeking motivation or a fresh perspective. Join us as we explore the elegance and insight found within these treasured words.

1. “In this world, not everything will be won by justice. If you want to win, you have to learn how to cheat. (Nana)” - Ai Yazawa

2. “The woman was silent, her eyes on the floor. Shimamura had come to a point where he knew he was only parading his masculine shamelessness, and yet it seemed likely enough that the woman was familiar with the failing and need not be shocked by it. He looked at her. Perhaps it was the rich lashes of the downcast eyes that made her face seem warm and sensuous. She shook her head very slightly, and again a faint blush spread over her face.” - Yasunari Kawabata

3. “But even more than her diary, Shimamura was surprised at her statement that she had carefully cataloged every novel and short story she had read since she was fifteen or sixteen. The record already filled ten notebooks."You write down your criticisms, do you?""I could never do anything like that. I just write down the author and the characters and how they are related to each other. That is about all.""But what good does it do?""None at all.""A waste of effort.""A complete waste of effort," she answered brightly, as though the admission meant little to her. She gazed solemnly at Shimamura, however.A complete waste of effort. For some reason Shimamura wanted to stress the point. But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence.” - Yasunari Kawabata

4. “The bond between husband and wife is a strong one. Suppose the man had hunted her out and brought her back. The memory of her acts would still be there, and inevitably, sooner or later, it would be cause for rancor. When there are crises, incidents, a woman should try to overlook them, for better or for worse, and make the bond into something durable. The wounds will remain, with the woman and with the man, when there are crises such as I have described. It is very foolish for a woman to let a little dalliance upset her so much that she shows her resentment openly. He has his adventures--but if he has fond memories of their early days together, his and hers, she may be sure that she matters. A commotion means the end of everything. She should be quiet and generous, and when something comes up that quite properly arouses her resentment she should make it known by delicate hints. The man will feel guilty and with tactful guidance he will mend his ways. Too much lenience can make a woman seem charmingly docile and trusting, but it can also make her seem somewhat wanting in substance. We have had instances enough of boats abandoned to the winds and waves.It may be difficult when someone you are especially fond of, someone beautiful and charming, has been guilty of an indiscretion, but magnanimity produces wonders. They may not always work, but generosity and reasonableness and patience do on the whole seem best.” - Murasaki Shikibu

5. “The hanging gate, of something like trelliswork, was propped on a pole, and he could see that the house was tiny and flimsy. He felt a little sorry for the occupants of such a place--and then asked himself who in this world had a temporary shelter.[Anonymous, Kokinshuu 987:Where in all this world shall I call home?A temporary shelter is my home.]A hut, a jeweled pavilion, they were the same. A pleasantly green vine was climbing a board wall. The white flowers, he said to himself, had a rather self-satisfied look about them.'I needs must ask the lady far yonder," he said, as if to himself.[Anonymous, Kokinshuu 1007:I needs must ask the lady far yonderWhat flower it is off there that blooms so white.]An attendant came up, bowing deeply. "The white flowers far off yonder are known as 'evening faces," he said. "A very human sort of name--and what a shabby place they have picked to bloom in."It was as the man said. The neighborhood was a poor one, chiefly of small houses. Some were leaning precariously, and there were "evening faces" at the sagging eaves.A hapless sort of flower. Pick one off for me, will you?"The man went inside the raised gate and broke off a flower. A pretty little girl in long, unlined yellow trousers of raw silk came out through a sliding door that seemed too good for the surroundings. Beckoning to the man, she handed him a heavily scented white fan.Put it on this. It isn't much of a fan, but then it isn't much of a flower either.” - Murasaki Shikibu

6. “Here's my impression of you when we met the other day: you HAVE changed completely--but I wish you hadn't. I think I understand why you're on your best behavior at school, and I suppose I ought to praise you for showing such an improvement, but please don't force yourself to change too much. Please, at least when you're with me, be the same bright Naomi who chats about everything under the sun. You and I have grown up in different environments, we have different lives, and we also think differently--yet in spite of all these differences I'm sure we can be the best of friends. One day we may come to share the same ideas, but I'd like to believe that it's a natural growing together.” - Shizuko Go

7. “From outside the shelter came children's voices. The shrill squeals brought the excitement of their unseen game into the opaque quiet of Setsuko's world and made her smile. "No war can go on forever. And human beings are the toughest creatures on earth, you know. There's no sense in being in a hurry to die. You MUST LIVE, whatever happens." Shoichi Wakui had squeezed her hand and told her this with an almost violent urgency, though his grasp was weak and his voice halting. Were those the Sugiwaras' children she could hear? The barber had had the presence of mind to rescue his kit when he fled through the flames of his burning shop, and now he was doing a brisk trade, seating his customers on cushions atop piled stones from the foundations. To house his family he'd put a lean-to against the railway embankment, barely enough to keep out the weather, but at least the children were no longer starving. Even in defeat the locally garrisoned soldiers all had some supplies of food, and while waiting to board trains for their hometowns from Yokohama Station they'd sit on the stone seat of the Sugawara Barbershop and have a good shave, leaving the children something to eat as payment.Setsuko no longer felt the rage that had overwhelmed her at the disbanding ceremony. If they had fought on home ground, one hundred million Japanese sworn to die before they would surrender, those children would have had to die too. Those young lives and spirits would have been extinguished in terror and pain and they wouldn't even have understood why. They have a right to go on living, and the strength to do it, Setsuko thought. For their sakes, if no one else's, I should rejoice that the war ended before an invasion reached the home front. Shoichi Wakui's words came back clearly: "Even when a war is lost, people's lives still go on." And Naomis, in the gray notebook: "Every war comes to an end, and when peace is restored Paris rises like a phoenix." But what about those who'd already died? It was agony to think of those who would not rise: the dead would be left where they fell at the ends of the earth while the living would come home with their knapsacks of clothing and food. Whether they had gone to the front or stayed at home, the people had staked their lives for country and Emperor, and after they had lost, the country and the Emperor were still there. Then what had it all meant? Adrift and floundering in despair, Setsuko slipped back into a restless sleep.” - Shizuko Go

8. “These days, even plain tea has become a treat, hasn't it?” - Shizuko Go

9. “In the middle distance, sails were gliding like butterflies, and farther away, ships dotted the mouth of the bay between Awa and Sagami as if brushed in ink in a single flowing stroke.” - Haruo Shirane

10. “His smiling face revealed a love too strong to be kept inside, but the feelings obviously rising inside him kept him from looking directly at Kikunojou. He gazed instead at Kikunojou's clear reflection on the water.” - Haruo Shirane

11. “Those who hurt others will also hurt themselves.” - Natsuki Takaya

12. “いまの彼には、彼がしっかり目におさめて、そして理解した、あの高い、正しい、美しい大空に比べたら、ナポレオンの心を占めているあらゆる利害が、いかにもむなしいものに思われ、このちっぽけな虚栄心と勝利の喜びに酔っている彼の憧れの英雄自身も、いかにも小さな人間に思われた――『戦争と平和』より” - Tolstoj L.N.

13. “I know I have a pretty good sense for music, but she was better than me. I used to think it was such a waste! I thought, ‘If only she had started out with a good teacher and gotten the proper training, she’d be so much further along!’ But I was wrong about that. She was not the kind of child who could stand proper training. There just happen to be people like that. They’re blessed with this marvelous talent, but they can’t make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I’ve seen my share of people like that. At first you think they’re amazing. Like, they can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you’re overwhelmed. you think, ‘I could never do that in a million years.’ But that’s as far as they go. They can’t take it any further. And why not? Because they won’t put in the effort. Because they haven’t had the discipline pounded into them. They’ve been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they’ve been able to play things well without any effort and they’ve had people telling them how great they are from the time they’re little, so hard work looks stupid to them. They’ll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher figures they’ve put enough into it and lets them go to the next thing. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a certain element required or character building. It’s a tragedy.” - Haruki Murakami

14. “And, well, mine are kind of on the heavy side anyway. The first day or two, I don't want to do ANYTHING. Make sure you keep away from me then.'I'd like to, but how can I tell?' I asked.O.K., I'll wear a hat for a couple of days after my period starts. A red one. That should work,' she said with a laugh. 'If you see me on the street and I'm wearing a red hat, don't talk to me, just run away.” - Haruki Murakami

15. “I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn't up to me. It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness.” - Banana Yoshimoto

16. “Chilled-looking people walking along the riverside, the snow beginning, faintly, to pile up on the roofs of cars, the bare trees shaking their heads left and right, dry leaves tossing in the wind. The silver of the metal window sash sparkling coldly.Soon after, I heard sensei call, "Mikage! Are you awake? It's snowing, look! It's snowing!""I'm coming!" I called out, standing up. I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again.” - Banana Yoshimoto

17. “With a cold"--she spoke evenly, lowering her eyes a little--"now is the hardest time. Maybe even harder than dying. But this is probably as bad as it can get. You might come to fear the next time you get a cold; it will be as bad as this, but if you just hold steady, it won't be. For the rest of your life. That's how it works. You could take the negative view and live in fear: Will it happen again? But it won't hurt so much if you just accept it as a part of life." With that she looked up at me, smiling.” - Banana Yoshimoto

18. “Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations—there you will find the essence of true art, religion, and science.” - Santoka Taneda

19. “...O-suzu left whatever work she was doing at her sewing machine and dragged Takeo back to O-yoshi and her son.How dare you behave so selfishly! Now tell O-yoshi-san that you are sorry. Get down on the mats and make a proper bow!” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

20. “Too lazy to be ambitious,I let the world take care of itself.Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?Listening to the night rain on my roof,I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.” - Ryokan

21. “No, I don't want your money. The world moves less by money than by what you owe people and what they owe you. I don't like to owe anybody anything, so I keep to myself as much on the lending side as I can.” - Haruki Murakami

22. “What I always say is that Japanese are like willow. We can be bent easily, but once you try to break us, it would not be so easy.” - Hiroko Sakai

23. “In old Chinese novels, especially in the Kimpeibai, usually after every ten or twenty pages of innocent description, the author invariably throws in an indecent scene as if he were quite punctually fulfilling a promise.” - Ōgai Mori

24. “An obstacle which would frighten discreet men is nothing to determined women. They dare what men avoid, and sometimes they achieve an unusual success.” - Ōgai Mori

25. “He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills.” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

26. “People used to say that on moonless nights Her Ladyship's broad-skirted scarlet trousers would glide eerily along the outdoor corridor, never touching the floor.” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

27. “Chained inside the carriage is a sinful woman. When we set the carriage afire, her flesh will be roasted, her bones will be charred: she will die an agonizing death. Never again will you have such a perfect model for the screen. Do not fail to watch as her snow-white flesh erupts in flames. See and remember her long black hair dancing in a whirl of sparks!” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

28. “Still more horrible was the color of the flames that licked the latticed cabin vents before shooting skyward, as though - might I say? - the sun itself had crashed to earth, spewing its heavenly fire in all directions.” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

29. “I could have sworn that the man's eyes were no longer watching his daughter dying in agony, that instead the gorgeous colors of flames and the sight of a woman suffering in them were giving him joy beyond measure.” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

30. “Directly beneath the Lotus Pond of Paradise lay the lower depths of Hell, and as He peered through the crystalline waters, He could see the River of Three Crossings and the Mountain of Needles as clearly as if He were viewing pictures in a peep-box.” - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

31. “Lupasit tullaluokseni viime yönä.Se yö on mennyt.En luota sinuun enää.Rakastan sinua aina.” - Ariwara no Narihira

32. “Sataa kirsikankukkaslunta ja lumenkirsikankukkaa.Minä kysyn kevväältä:lunta, kukkaa vai lunta?” - Lady Ise

33. “Suohon uponnutpuu ei kukkinut koskaan.Nyt minä kannanainoan hedelmäni:menen itse kuolemaan.” - Minamoto no Yorimasa

34. “Kevään kukkienaikaan toivomme etteiolisi yötä,syksyllä kuutamossa,ettei päivä koittaisi.” - Saigyō Hōshi

35. “Ulkona alkaasadella, pehmeästi.Minä kuuntelen.Käännän lampun seinään päinniin tulee hämärämpää.” - Fushimi Tennō

36. “Miekkani nostan, tämän miekan niin kauanomistamani:on vihdoinkin aika sesingota taivasta päin.” - Sen no Rikyū

37. “He invited me to his apartment in the wee hours one morning and pulled out a set of children's building blocks. It seems he used to ride around and around on the Yamanote Line with them, building castles on the floor of the train.” - Ryu Murakami

38. “When you're in an extreme situation you tend to avoid facing it by getting caught up in little details. Like a guy who's decided to commit suicide and boards a train only to become obsessed with whether he remembered to lock the door when he left home.” - Ryu Murakami

39. “Lady #1, Maki, had never once given any thought to what was really right for her in her life, simply believing that if she surrounded herself with super-exclusive things, she'd become a super-exclusive person.” - Ryu Murakami

40. “When you're a kid, getting lost isn't just an event or a situation, it's like a career move. You get this thrill of anxiety and fear and a feeling that you've done something that can never be undone.” - Ryu Murakami

41. “They needed a reason why a little kid would commit murder, someone or something to point the finger at, and I think they were relieved when they hit upon horror movies as the culprit. But there's no reason a child commits murder, just as there's no reason a child gets lost. What would it be - because his parents weren't watching him? That's not a reason, it's just a step in the process.” - Ryu Murakami

42. “Everything in my life revolves around people playing at being something.” - Banana Yoshimoto