Mishima Yukio cytaty

„Szczęście w miłości jest jak złoty piasek połyskujący w błocie, na dnie piekła.“

—  Mishima Yukio

„Miłość jest jak popiół zmieszany z miodem – trzeba by dodać temu trochę świętości.“

—  Mishima Yukio

„Przestań się zachowywać jak dziecko, które jest niezadowolone z przegranej – zaśmiał się drwiąco Kashiwagi. – Chciałem, żebyś wiedział. To poznanie przeobraża ten świat. Rozumiesz? Nic innego nie może go przeobrazić. Tylko poznanie przeobraża świat, jednocześnie pozostawiając go nie zmienionym, w tym samym stanie. Patrząc z punktu widzenia poznania, świat jest wiecznie niezmienny i wiecznie się przeobraża. Ty pewnie zapytasz, po co to jest potrzebne. Powiedzmy, że człowiek jest wyposażony w broń w postaci poznania, aby mógł znieść życie. Zwierzęta tego nie potrzebują. To dlatego, że nie mają świadomości znoszenia życia. Poznanie jest więc tym trudnym do zniesienia życiem, które stało się bronią człowieka, jednak życie nie staje się przez to łatwiejsze do zniesienia. I to wszystko.
– Nie uważasz, że są inne sposoby znoszenia życia?
– Nie ma. Poza tym jest tylko szaleństwo albo śmierć.“

—  Mishima Yukio

„When silence is prolonged over a certain period of time, it takes on new meaning.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Thirst for Love

Źródło: Thirst for Love

„True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.“

—  Yukio Mishima

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

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Runaway Horses

Źródło: Runaway Horses

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/06/02/books/book-reviews/yukio-mishimas-demons-full-force-runaway-horses/ note: Runaway Horses (1969)

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

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Confessions of a Mask

Źródło: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 222.

„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.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1959).
Kontekst: 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. You may ask what good it does us. Let's put it this way — human beings possess the weapon of knowledge in order to make life bearable. For animals such things aren't necessary. Animals don't need knowledge or anything of the sort to make life bearable. But human beings do need something, and with knowledge they can make the very intolerableness of life a weapon, though at the same time that intolerableness is not reduced in the slightest. That's all there is to it.

„Only through the group, I realised — through sharing the suffering of the group — could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Sun and Steel

Źródło: Sun and Steel (1968), p. 87.
Kontekst: Only through the group, I realised — through sharing the suffering of the group — could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain. And for the body to reach that level at which the divine might be glimpsed, a dissolution of individuality was necessary. The tragic quality of the group was also necessary, the quality that constantly raised the group out of the abandon and torpor into which it was prone to lapse, leading it to an ever-mounting shared suffering and so to death, which was the ultimate suffering. The group must be open to death — which meant, of course, that it must be a community of warriors.

„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 the Truth.“

—  Yukio Mishima

"The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love" in Death in Midsummer, and Other Stories (1966), p. 61.
Kontekst: 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 the Truth. And first we must know that each of the petals has eighty-four thousand veins and that each vein gives eighty-four thousand lights.

„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 with preparations for it.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Confessions of a Mask

Źródło: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 118.
Kontekst: 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 with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it.

„All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence.“

—  Yukio Mishima

As quoted in Mishima : A Life in Four Chapters (1985).
Kontekst: 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 this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So I found another form of expression.

„Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words will be corroded too.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Sun and Steel

Źródło: Sun and Steel (1968), p. 9.
Kontekst: Words are a medium that reduces reality to abstraction for transmission to our reason, and in their power to corrode reality inevitably lurks the danger that the words will be corroded too. It might be more appropriate, in fact, to liken their action to excessive stomach fluids that digest and gradually eat away the stomach itself.
Many people will express disbelief that such a process could already be at work in a person's earliest years. But that, beyond doubt, is what happened to me personally, thereby laying the ground for two contradictory tendencies within myself. One was the determination to press ahead loyally with the corrosive function of words, and to make that my life's work. The other was the desire to encounter reality in some field where words should play no part at all.

„My "act" has ended by becoming an integral part of my nature, I told myself. It's no longer an act.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Confessions of a Mask

Źródło: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 153.
Kontekst: My "act" has ended by becoming an integral part of my nature, I told myself. It's no longer an act. My knowledge that I am masquerading as a normal person has even corroded whatever of normality I originally possessed, ending by making me tell myself over and over again that it too was nothing but a pretense of normality. To say it another way, I'm becoming the sort of person who can't believe in anything except the counterfeit.

„Beauty is something that burns the hand when you touch it.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Forbidden Colors

Źródło: Forbidden Colors

„Young people get the foolish idea that what is new for them must be new for everybody else too. No matter how unconventional they get, they're just repeating what others before them have done.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka After the Banquet

Źródło: After the Banquet

„Nobody even imagines how well one can lie about the state of one’s own heart.“

—  Yukio Mishima, książka Thirst for Love

Źródło: Thirst for Love

„Possessing by letting go of things was a secret of ownership unknown to youth.“

—  Yukio Mishima

„We live in an age in which there is no heroic death.“

—  Yukio Mishima