Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Yukio Mishima

Quote by Yukio Mishima

“Beauty, on the other hand, is always on this side. It is in this world, in the present, firm; it can be touched with the hand. That our sexual appetites can taste it is beauty's precondition. Sensuality is, therefore, essential. It confirms beauty. However, beauty can never be reached, because the susceptibilities of sense, more than anything else, block attainment of it. The method by which the Greeks expressed beauty through sculpture was a wise one. I am a novelist. Of all the rubbish that has been invented in the modern times, the profession I have chosen is the worst. Don't you think that for the expression of beauty it is the most bungling and low-class of professions?”

Quote by Yukio Mishima

Work

Forbidden Colors

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author and playwright, a prominent figure in post-war Japanese literature. His works, characterized by a fusion of traditional Japanese aesthetics and modernist techniques, often explored themes of tradition, ritual, and the samurai code. more

You May Also Like

“Gold had many admirers, though Doha himself was not one of them. Too many allowed it to occupy the space inside their chests. He didn’t understand it. For a metal, it was pretty weak and unimpressive. And as currency, he’d only ever longed for enough. His father had worked his body broken so that they might have it. Doha did not think excess was worth his father’s misery. Still, as he beheld how the light reflected on the surface, he simply couldn’t help but be taken with its simple beauty.”