Kokoro (Penguin Classics)

“It’s not you in particular I don’t trust. I don’t trust humanity.”

We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It’s the price we pay for these times of ours.”

Sensei was a man who could, indeed must love, yet he was unable to open his arms and accept into his heart another who sought to enter.

Just as you can only really smell incense in the first moments after it is lit, or taste wine in that instant of the first sip, the impulse of love springs from a single, perilous moment in time, I feel. If this moment slips casually by unnoticed, intimacy may grow as the two become accustomed to each other, but the impulse to romantic love will be

My past, which made me what I am, is an aspect of human experience that only I can describe. My effort to write as honestly as possible will not be in vain, I feel, since it will help both you and others who read it to understand humanity better.

The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot,

You see, in the old days I used to feel uncomfortable and ashamed whenever someone asked me a question I couldn’t answer, or when my ignorance was exposed in public somehow. These days, though, I’ve come to feel that there’s nothing particularly shameful about not knowing, so I don’t any longer have the urge to push myself to read. I’ve grown old,

“I don’t even trust myself. It’s because I can’t trust myself that I can’t trust others. I can only curse myself for it.”

Just remember that love is a sin. And it is also sacred.”