Quotes from Yukio Mishima

Men had been living a proud life, having felt no need for the spirit-until Christianity invented it.

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

It seems to me that before the photograph can exist as art it must, by its very nature choose whether it is to be a record or a testimony.

Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.

Quite possibly, what I call happiness may coincide with what others call the moment of imminent danger

Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?

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 whereby we may perceive Truth.

Mine was the unbearable jealousy a cultured pearl must feel toward a genuine one. Or can there be such a thing in this world as a man who is jealous of the woman who loves him, precisely because of her love?

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.

There's a huge seal called 'impossibility' pasted all over this world. And don't ever forget that we're the only ones who can tear it off once and for all.

Still immersed in his dream, he drank down the tepid tea. It tasted bitter. Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff.

There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.

When people concentrate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how human beings are made.

He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophes.

The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority.

For clearly it is impossible to touch eternity with one hand and life with the other.

The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man.

It is a common failing of childhood to think that if one makes a hero out of a demon the demon will be satisfied.

Other people must be destroyed. In order that I might truly face the sun, the world itself must be destroyed....

For a long time I had not approached the forbidden fruit called happiness, but it was now tempting me with a melancholy persistence. I felt as though Sonoko were an abyss above which I stood poised.

If we look on idly, heaven and earth will never be joined. To join heaven and earth, some decisive deed of purity is necessary. To accomplish so resolute an action, you have to stake your life, giving no thought to personal gain or loss. You have to turn into a dragon and stir up a whirlwind, tear the dark, brooding clouds asunder and soar up into the azure-blue sky.

I am one who has always been interested only in the edges of the body and the spirit, the outlying regions of the body and the outlying regions of the spirit. The depths hold no interest for me; I leave them to others, for they are shallow, commonplace. What is there, then, at the outer most edge? Nothing, perhaps, save a few ribbons, dangling down into the void.

Even when we're with someone we love, we're foolish enough to think of her body and soul as being separate. To stand before the person we love is not the same as loving her true self, for we are only apt to regard her physical beauty as the indispensable mode of her existence. When time and space intervene, it is possible to be deceived by both, but on the other hand, it is equally possible to draw twice as close to her real self.

Human life is limited but I would like to live forever.