智に働けば角が立つ。情に棹させば流される。意地を通せば窮屈だ。とかくに人の世は住みにくい。 · 夏目漱石, 草枕

Work by reason and you grate on people. Go with feeling and you are swept along. Insist on your own way and you box yourself in. However you go about it, this world is hard to live in.

夏目漱石, 草枕

Public-domain text from Aozora Bunko. The line is checked word for word against the source text when this site is built, so it can't drift into a misquote. The English is our own rendering, not a published translation. Furigana is generated automatically, so a rare reading may be imperfect.