Imi Lo > Imi's Quotes

“If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that “I am of use to someone,” without needing to go out of one’s way to be acknowledged by others. In other words, a person who is obsessed with the desire for recognition does not have any community feeling yet, and has not managed to engage in self-acceptance, confidence in others, or contribution to others.”
― Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

“No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.’ That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.”
― Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

“I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:
a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

“That's the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done”
― Banana Yoshimoto, N.P

“Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.”
― Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies