to not be; not / wrong; incorrect / non-; un-; in-; de- / to reproach; to blame / (coll.) to insist on; simply must
非
=
三
+
丿
+
丨
:
Mnemonic symbol: a negative film (photography).
Frankenstein's monster (f) made an effort to photograph the Eiffel Tower (ei1), but now his negative (非) is a big mess. In front of the tower he set up a camera on a Cartesian coordinate system (三) as a tripod, and he attached a banana (丿) and a dinosaur bone (丨) to the camera so that he can finely tune the angles. All was for naught as he now holds the messed up negative in his hands.
但
=
亻
+
旦
:
Rosa Luxemburg and Don Quixote meet each other in the early morning in the anthill's bathroom, but they both only started their morning coffee (which is in their mugs) and are not in the mood to talk yet.