Quote of the day by Osamu Dazai: 'I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe...'

Osamu Dazai's quote 'I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven' appears in his 1948 semi-autobiographical novel 'No Longer Human'.

Dazai, born Shūji Tsushima in 1909, belonged to the Burai-ha (Decadent School) and explored themes of alienation, despair, addiction, and personal failure in his works.

The novel, presented as three notebooks of a troubled man named Yozo Oba, reflects Dazai's own struggles and includes themes of alcoholism, morphine addiction, depression, and suicide attempts.

Dazai died by suicide in 1948 at age 38, his body found in Tokyo's Tamagawa Canal on June 19, his 39th birthday.

Psychologists explain the quote's resonance through negative cognitive bias, where the brain treats painful experiences as facts and dismisses positive ones as unreal.