Japan

🇯🇵Haruki Murakami

Literature

Surrealism

b. 1949

"Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route."

🇯🇵Taisen Deshimaru

Education

1914–1982

"You are the strongest and the others keep their distance. It is no longer necessary to win victories over them."

🇯🇵Yukio Mishima

Literature

Postmodernism

1925–1970

"He'd been mistaken in thinking that if he killed himself the sordid bourgeois world would perish with him."

🇯🇵Keiji Nishitani

Philosophy

1900–1990

"In the religiosity of Zen Buddhism, demythologization of the mythical and existentialization of the scientific belong to one and the same process."

"There's only one thing that can heal the heart... Only one... It's love, Gaara."

🇯🇵Kobayashi Issa

Literature

1763–1828

"Never forget:we walk on hell,gazing at flowers."

"Loving someone always requires you to not love others."

"Those who hurt others will also hurt themselves."

🇯🇵Yoko Ono

Art

Fluxus

b. 1933

"Each time we don't say what we wanna say, we're dying."

🇯🇵Shigeru Miyamoto

Entertainment

b. 1952

"I don't like all the attention. I think it's better to let my work do the talking."

"Crap.It's all crap.Living is crap.Life has no meaning.None. Nowhere to be found.Crap.Why doesn't anybody realize this?"

"The longer we live, the more weight we carry in our hearts."

🇯🇵Hajime Isayama

Art

b. 1986

"The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful."

"If I were rain, That joins sky and earth that otherwise never touch,Could I join two hearts as well?"

🇯🇵Tadamichi Kuribayashi

Military

1890–1945

"The US is the last country in the world we should fight."

🇯🇵Chiaki Kuriyama

Music

b. 1984

"I've been playing these schoolgirl roles in all my movies. Every time I went to the set, it felt like I was going to school."

"In my crazy world, above all others...you were the only one who was the ugliest. And you were the only one...who was the most beautiful.... This is the unspoken truth."

🇯🇵Akira Ifukube

Music

1914–2006

"I don't think that American audiences would accept the tonal character of my music."

🇯🇵Murasaki Shikibu

Literature

973–1014

"One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome."

🇯🇵Miyamoto Musashi

Literature

1583–1645

"If you learn "indoor" techniques, you will think narrowly and forget the true Way. Thus you will have difficulty in actual encounters."

🇯🇵Debito Arudou

Literature

b. 1965

"WaiWai was an essential guide to Japanese attitudes and editorial directives."

🇯🇵Shunroku Hata

Military

1879–1962

"We should not miss the present opportunity or we shall be blamed by posterity."

"Gravity from strings: personal reminiscence on early developments." arXiv preprint arXiv:0901.0079 ."

🇯🇵Masahiro Shinoda

Entertainment

1931–2025

"One thing I can say is either to look at films very carefully, watch a lot of films, or don't see any films at all. Just imagine!"

🇯🇵Masanobu Fukuoka

Philosophy

1913–2008

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."

🇯🇵Ippen

Religion

Buddhism

1239–1289

"In the Buddha’s teaching, unless you cast away body and life, there can be no realization of benefit."

🇯🇵Eisuke Sakakibara

Economics

b. 1941

"Japan's nomination of Mr. Eisuke Sakakibara... for the post of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, 2000"

🇯🇵Kanō Jigorō

Education

1860–1938

"Walk a single path, becoming neither cocky with victory nor broken with defeat, without forgetting caution when all is quiet or becoming frightened when danger threatens."

🇯🇵George Ohsawa

Medicine

1893–1966

"Macrobiotic living is the process of changing ourselves so that we can eat anything we like without fear of becoming ill; it enables us to live a joyful life during which we can achieve anything we choose."

🇯🇵Nakayama Miki

Religion

1949–2002

"Whoever comes to this house shall never leave without being filled with joy. To Me, the Parent, all human beings in the world are My children."

🇯🇵Yoshida Shoin

Politics

1830–1859

"To consider oneself different from ordinary men is wrong, but it is right to hope that one will not remain like ordinary men."

🇯🇵Ihara Saikaku

Literature

ukiyozōshi

1642–1693

"The first consideration for all, throughout life, is the earning of a living."

🇯🇵Kenzaburō Ōe

Literature

Existentialism

1935–2023

"A dangerous atmosphere of nationalism is coming in our society. So now I want to criticize this tendency, and I want to do everything to prevent the development of fascism in Japanese society."

🇯🇵Sakutarō Hagiwara

Literature

1886–1942

"Poetry always looks down on vulgar folk, transcends the air of the age, and honors the most noble and clear spirit—that is utterly natural in its essence."

🇯🇵Osamu Tezuka

Art

1928–1989

"I first followed the comics of Tagawa Suihō and Yokoyama Ryūichi. But suddenly, once I became devoted to Disney, I set out to copy and master that stuffed-animal style, eventually ending up with how I now draw."

🇯🇵Fukuzawa Yukichi

Philosophy

Enlightenment

1835–1901

"Fukuzawa's portrait marketed as Chinese Tea of Dr. Ming"

🇯🇵Matsushita Konosuke

Business

1894–1989

"When it rains, you put up an umbrella. That is the secret of success in business and management."

🇯🇵Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Religion

1659–1719

"In carefully scrutinizing the affairs of the past, we find that there are many different opinions about them, and that there are some things that are quite unclear. It is better to regard such things as unknowable."

🇯🇵Banana Yoshimoto

Literature

b. 1964

"No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider."