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Yukio Mishima

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Famous Yukio Mishima Quotes

“Kiyo, what would you do if all of a sudden I weren't here any more?' Satoko asked, her words coming in a rushed whisper. This was a long-standing trick of Satoko's for disconcerting people. Perhaps she achieved her effects without conscious effort, but she never allowed the slightest hint of mischief into her tone to put her victim at ease. Her voice would be heavy with pathos at such times, as though confiding the gravest of secrets. Although he should have been inured to this by now, Kiyoaki could not help asking: 'Not here any more? Why?' Despite all his efforts to indicate a studied disinterest, Kiyoaki's reply betrayed his uneasiness. It was what Satoko wanted. 'I can't tell you why,' she answered, deftly dropping ink into the clear waters of Kiyoaki's heart...”

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Book:Spring Snow
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“However, whatever frightening mask it might assume, the national spirit in its original state was of pristine whiteness. Traveling through a country like Thailand, Honda realized more clearly than ever the simplicity and purity of things Japanese, like transparent stream water through which one could glimpse pebbles below, or the probity of Shinto rites. Honda’s life was not imbued with such spirit. Like the majority of Japanese he ignored it, behaving as though it did not exist and surviving by escaping from it. All his life he had dodged things fundamental and artless: white silk, clear cold water, the zigzag white paper of the exorciser’s staff fluttering in the breeze, the sacred precinct marked by a torii, the gods’ dwelling in the sea, the mountains, the vast ocean, the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp. Not only Honda, but the vast majority of Westernized Japanese, could no longer stand such intensely native elements.”

Culture IdentityJapanese Spirit
Book:The temple of dawn
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“True beauty makes men dumb [...] criticism, like beauty, sought above all to strike men dumb [...] Criticism's method was to evoke silence without calling on beauty [...] At some time, however, the faith that beauty must strike dumb became a thing of the past. Beauty has not only failed to silence people, it has gotten so even when it passes through the middle of a banquet people don't stop talking. Those of you who have gone to Kyoto do not fail to go to the Stone Garden at the Ryoanji Temple [...]It is a garden to strike men dumb. The amusing thing , though, is that [...] saying that it would not do not to say a word, they screw up their faces trying to squeeze out a haiku [...] It has gotten so we feel we must say something in a great hurry. It has gotten so feel we must convert beauty right away. If we don't convert it, it's dangerous. [...] With this, the age of criticism began.”

PhilosophyBeautyCriticismApathy
Book:Forbidden Colors
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“The purest evil that human efforts could attain, in other words, was probably achieved by those men who made their wills the same and who made their eyes see the world in the same way, men who went against the pattern of life's diversity, men whose spirits shattered the natural wall of the individual body, making nothing of this barrier, set up to guard against mutual corrosion, men whose spirit accomplished what flesh could never accomplish.”

MenWorldWayHumansMadeBodyEyeSpiritEvilIndividualNaturalEffortWallDiversityPatternsAccomplishFleshAccomplishedBarriersMutualShattered
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“I had long since insisted upon interpreting the things that Fate forced me to do as victories of my own will and intelligence, and now this bad habit had grown into a sort of frenzied arrogance. In the nature of what I was calling my intelligence there was a touch of something illegitimate, a touch of the sham pretender who has been placed on the throne by some freak chance. This dolt of a usurper could not foresee the revenge that would inevitably be wreaked upon his stupid despotism.”

LongHas BeensChanceMy OwnFateStupidHabitVictoryCallingRevengeArroganceFreakThronesDespotismBad HabitsInterpretingPretenderUsurpers
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“This is a photograph, so it is as you see: there are no lies and no deceptions. One can detect here, elevated to an incomparably higher level, the same pathetic emotional appeal that lies concealed in every fake spiritualist photograph, every pornographic photograph; one comes to suspect that the strange, disturbing emotional appeal of the photographic art consists solely in that same repeated refrain: this is a true ghost... this is a photograph, so it is as you see: there are no lies, no deceptions.”

ArtLyingLevelsEmotionalStrangeHigherPhotographGhostAppealsDeceptionFakeSuspectsDisturbingPatheticConcealedRefrainHigher LevelEmotional Appeal
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“The images which the [press] photographer has filtered from reality, whether particular events or the anguish of human reactions to them, already bear a stamp of authenticity which the photographer is powerless to alter by one jot or tittle; the meaning of the objects, by a process of purification, itself becomes the theme of the work.”

HumansRealityProcessEventsObjectsParticularBearsPressesPhotographerReactionsAuthenticityThemeAnguishPowerlessStampsPurification
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.”

WorldLooksMeanRealizingThis WorldCapableLeavingTransformedTransformingUnchangeableTransforming The World
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“His conviction of having no purpose in life other than to act as a distillation of poison was part of the ego of an eighteen-year-old. He had resolved that his beautiful white hands would never be soiled or calloused. He wanted to be like a pennant, dependent on each gusting wind. The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions--gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose.”

YearsHandsWantedBeautifulPurposeWhiteEmotionDyingWindEgoConvictionPoisonDependentPurpose Of LifeEighteenUnstableDistillationEighteen Years Old
Book:Spring Snow
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“Dreams, memories, the sacred--they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”

MenDreamMemoriesQualityObjectsStrangeSourceMiracleSacredAcquireMiraculousUnattainableSacrednessStrange Man
Book:Spring Snow
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“However, as words become particularized, and as men begin - in however small a way - to use them in personal, arbitrary ways, so their transformation into art begins. It was words of this kind that, descending on me like a swarm of winged insects, seized on my individuality and sought to shut me up within it. Nevertheless, despite the enemy's depredations upon my person, I turned their universality - at once a weapon and a weakness - back on them, and to some extent succeeded in using words to universalize to my own individuality.”

MenWayKindPersonsArtUseMy OwnEnemyWeaponsWeaknessTransformationIndividualityDespiteNeverthelessInsectsArbitraryDescendingSwarmsUniversalityUsing Words
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“..and certain that life consisted of a few simple signals and decisions; that death took root at the moment of birth and man’s only recourse thereafter was to water and tend it; that propagation was a fiction; consequently, society was a fiction too; that fathers and teachers, by virtue of being fathers and teachers, were guilty of a grievous sin.”

MenMomentsCertainFatherWaterSinSimpleDecisionFictionVirtueTeacherBirthRootsGuiltySignalsBeing A FatherRecoursePropagation
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.”

WellsWantedDesireDiesNaturalWalksSunPathSkyMountainShotsSuicideAncientStrangerStupidityBrilliantGreekSentimentsSpontaneousFoxesHuntersCunningAncient GreekWanted To Die
Book:Confessions of a Mask
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“Amid the moon and the stars, amid the clouds of the night, amid the hills which bordered on the sky with their magnificent silhouette of pointed cedars, amid the speckled patches of the moon, amid the temple buildings that emerged sparkling white out of the surrounding darkness - amid all this, I was intoxicated by the pellucid beauty of Uiko's treachery.”

NightStarsWhiteDarknessSkyBuildingMoonCloudsHillsTemplesMagnificentPatchesTreacherySparklingIntoxicatedSilhouettesCedars
Book:The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
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“When a captive lion steps out of his cage, he comes into a wider world than the lion who has known only the wilds. While he was in captivity, there were only two worlds for him - the world of the cage, and the world outside the cage. Now he is free. He roars. He attacks people. He eats them. Yet he is not satisfied, for there is no third world that is neither the world of the cage nor the world outside the cage.”

PeopleWorldTwoKnownStepsThirdsSatisfiedLionsCagesThird WorldCaptivesCaptivityTwo Worlds
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“…the samurai ethic is a political science of the heart, designed to control such discouragement and fatigue in order to avoid showing them to others. It was thought more important to look healthy than to be healthy, and more important to seem bold and daring than to be so. This view of morality, since it is physiologically based on the special vanity peculiar to men, is perhaps the supreme male view of morality.”

MenLooksHeartImportantSeemsPoliticalOrderViewsSpecialMoralityHealthyEthicsMalesSupremeVanityPeculiarDaringManhoodFatiguePolitical ScienceDiscouragementSamurai
Author:Yukio Mishima
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“Suddenly the full long wail of a ship's horn surged through the open window and flooded the dim room—a cry of boundless, dark, demanding grief; pitch-black and glabrous as a whale's back and burdened with all the passions of the tides, the memory of voyages beyond counting, the joys, the humiliations: the sea was screaming.”

LittlesLongJoyNightPassionBlackMemoriesDarkRoomsGriefSeaCryWindowShipsTidesThirstHumiliationHornsCountingVoyagesBoundlessWhalesGlitterFrenzyNectarConveyingPitch Black
Author:Yukio Mishima
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