113 Best No Longer Human Quotes (with Commentary)

“No Longer Human,” a novel by Osamu Dazai, digs into the depths of human suffering and separation through the life of its protagonist, Ōba Yōzō.

The narrative is a touching exploration of a man who feels strongly disconnected from the human society around him.

Quotes from “No Longer Human” shows the raw emotions and thoughtful thoughts of Yōzō as he struggles with his identity and place in the world.

Top No Longer Human Quotes

“The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs.” Jeanne-Marie Roland

“It is human to have your soul brought to a crisis you did not anticipate.” Madeleine L’Engle

“Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness. They may not wear it on their sleeves, but it’s there if you look deep.” Taraji P. Henson

“Being human is given. But keeping our humanity is a choice.” Unknown

“I’m no longer human. I’m a titan, a god!” Rudolf Valentino

“Sometimes you have to lose your humanity to truly find it.” Unknown

“We’re all born human, but how long does that last?” Mishka Shubaly

“No longer human, not angel, not beast; I am something else: I am other.” Yukio Mishima

“Once you start questioning your humanity, you’re already out of the human race.” Unknown

“There comes a point where I’m no longer sure whether I am human dreaming I’m a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I’m human.” Philip K. Dick

Also Read: Snoopy Quotes (with Commentary)

No Longer Human Quotes on Alienation and Isolation

“I felt fundamentally different from everyone else, like I was not human.” Osamu Dazai

“The alienation I experienced daily was a literal split between me and the world.” Philip K. Dick

“Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.” Thomas Carlyle

“Alienation is an exhilarating experience of emptiness.” Unknown

“To be alone is to be different, to be different is to be alone.” Suzanne Gordon

“Isolation is a way to know ourselves.” Franz Kafka

“The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.” Mark Twain

“The eternal quest of the human being is to shatter his loneliness.” Norman Cousins

“My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.” Warsan Shire

“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” Mother Teresa

Inspirational No Longer Human Quotes on Overcoming Despair

“The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.” C.C. Scott

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” Haruki Murakami

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” Martin Luther King Jr.

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” J.K. Rowling

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Khalil Gibran

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Desmond Tutu

“The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.” Pliny the Elder

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” Nelson Mandela

“Despair can be the nadir of one thing and the foundation of another.” Norman Cousins

No Longer Human Quotes on the Human Condition

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” Alexander Pope

“The human condition is a good one in that no one is unhappy except by his own fault.” Seneca

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” Jean-Paul Sartre

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.” John Green

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde

“The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.” Blaise Pascal

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” Søren Kierkegaard

“The burden of the self is lightened with I laugh at myself.” Rabindranath Tagore

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.” Jack London

“Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” Ernest Hemingway

No Longer Human Quotes on Identity and Self-Discovery

“The only journey is the journey within.” Rainer Maria Rilke

“I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.” Vincent Van Gogh

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” Lao Tzu

“One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self; of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find.” Auliq Ice

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” Henry David Thoreau

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” Carl Jung

“Sometimes one has to lose his way to find himself better.” Unknown

“Every man is a mystery unto himself.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“To find yourself, think for yourself.” Socrates

No Longer Human Quotes on Existential Anxiety

“The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.” Cyril Connolly

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” Albert Camus

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” Søren Kierkegaard

“If we possess our why of life we can put up with almost any how.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Henry David Thoreau

“Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.” Viktor E. Frankl

“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” Kahlil Gibran

“Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.” John Updike

“What makes night within us may leave stars.” Victor Hugo

No Longer Human Quotes on Depression and Hopelessness

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise.” David Foster Wallace

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“When you’re surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you’re by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don’t feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you’re really alone.” Fiona Apple

“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold – with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.” Barbara Kingsolver

“In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.” Judy Garland

“At heart, I’m just a lonely guy looking for someone who can stand me.” Bill Hicks

“Hope is a necessity for normal life and the major weapon against the suicide impulse.” Karl A. Menninger

“I saw the world in black and white instead of the vibrant colours and shades I knew existed.” Katie McGarry

“Depression is being colorblind and constantly told how colorful the world is.” Atticus

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” Seneca

No Longer Human Quotes on Societal Expectations

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” Oscar Wilde

“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” Shannon L. Alder

“Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.” Oscar Wilde

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.” Virginia Woolf

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Society expects us to behave like human beings, but the individual is lost in the crowd.” Paul Auster

“He who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.” Albert Einstein

“The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find despite what society expects.” Auliq Ice

No Longer Human Quotes on Art and Expression

“Art is to console those who are broken by life.” Vincent Van Gogh

“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.” Anton Chekhov

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” Pablo Picasso

“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” Chuck Klosterman

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” Henry Ward Beecher

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” Twyla Tharp

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso

“To be an artist is to believe in life.” Henry Moore

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Thomas Merton

“The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist’s own spiritual nature.” George Inness

No Longer Human Quotes on Relationships and Loneliness

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” Mother Teresa

“Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” Nicole Sobon

“What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.” Richard Wilbur

“It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.” Sara Teasdale

“Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.” Carl Jung

“People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.” Kim Culbertson

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Michel de Montaigne

“Sometimes you need to be alone. Not to be lonely, but to enjoy your free time being yourself.” Unknown

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

“If you are afraid of being lonely, don’t try to be right.” Jules Renard

No Longer Human Quotes on Vulnerability and Strength

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” Brené Brown

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” Sigmund Freud

“The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.” Paulo Coelho

“Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure.” Bob Marley

“What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.” Brené Brown

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” Mahatma Gandhi

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway

“There is a certain strength in being alone.” Heather Duffy Stone

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.” Brené Brown

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius

No Longer Human Quotes on Transformation and Redemption

“Every act of rebirth, of the seasons, of the heart and mind, involves some kind of darkness, a painful acknowledgment of our own shortcomings.” Mark Nepo

“Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery.” Rick Warren

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou

“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” Deepak Chopra

“Redemption just means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong.” Ice T

“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” George Eliot

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” Marianne Williamson

“To be reborn, you have to die first.” Federico Fellini

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.” Janet Fitch

“We are not our mistakes, but may be defined by the character we build as we learn and grow from them.” Unknown

Also Read: Best Protect Your Peace Quotes (with Commentary)

Final Thoughts

Quotes from “No Longer Human” offer a clear, thoughtful look into the intricacies of mental health, societal pressures, and personal identity.

They challenge readers to contemplate on their own experiences with separation and the human desire for understanding and connection.

Through Yōzō’s narrative, Osamu Dazai invites you to confront the often bitter reality of feeling out of place in a world that seems both overwhelming and apathetic. These quotes not only improve your empathy for those who struggle internally but also remind you of the ongoing war many face in reconciling their inner agitation with the external world.