Yukio Mishima Quotes

81 quotes in 1539 categories

• By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent…
• I seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of…
• Again and again, the cicada's untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth.
• At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy…
• Isao had never felt that he might want to be a woman. He had never wished for anything else but to be a man, live…
• The special quality of hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail.
• According to Eshin's Essentials of Salvation, the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the joys of the Pure Land.
• All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence. For forty-five years I struggled to resolve…
• Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter.
• Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?
• There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.
• I had no taste for defeat — much less victory — without a fight.
• The most appropriate type of daily life for me was a day-by-day world destruction; peace was the most difficult and abnormal state to live in.
• If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death No death may be called futile.
• We tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even…
• Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent…
• Human life is limited but I would like to live forever.
• A father is a reality-concealing machine, a machine for dishing up lies to kids, and that isn't even the worst of it: secretly he believes…
• In the pale light of daybreak the gravestones looked like so many white sails of boats anchored in a busy harbor. They were sails that…
• Beyond doubt, there was a certain splendor in pain, which bore a deep affinity to the splendor that lies hidden within strength.

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