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An ugliness unfurled in the moonlight and soft shadow and suffused the whole world. If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn’t tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.

Yukio Mishima

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Yukio Mishima
Age: 45 †
Born: 1925
Born: January 14
Died: 1970
Died: November 25
Actor
Author
Critic
Essayist
Film Actor
Film Director
Lyricist
Military Personnel
Model
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Screenwriter
City of Tokyo
Mishima Yukio
Kimitake Hiraoka
Hiraoka Kimitake
Anything
Ugliness
Body
Giant
Whole
Giants
Enough
Soft
Unfurled
Men
Tiny
Suffused
World
Defeat
Amoeba
Shadow
Infinitesimal
Thought
Moonlight

More quotes by 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.
Yukio Mishima
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The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority
Yukio Mishima
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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.
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Human life is limited but I would like to live forever.
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We are not wounded so deeply when betrayed by the things we hope for as when betrayed by things we try our best to despise. In such betrayal comes the dagger in the back.
Yukio Mishima
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He had never looked forward to the wisdom and other vaunted benefits of old age. Would he be able to die young—and if possible free of all pain? A graceful death—as a richly patterned kimono, thrown carelessly across a polished table, slides unobtrusively down into the darkness of the floor beneath. A death marked by elegance.
Yukio Mishima
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Men had been living a proud life, having felt no need for the spirit-until Christianity invented it.
Yukio Mishima
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Beauty is something that burns the hand when you touch it.
Yukio Mishima
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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 that he represents reality.
Yukio Mishima
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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?
Yukio Mishima
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A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.
Yukio Mishima
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True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.
Yukio Mishima
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Abruptly he thrust his snow-drenched leather gloves against my cheeks. I dodged. A raw carnal feeling blazed up within me, branding my cheeks. I felt myself staring at him with crystal clear eyes... From that time on I was in love with Omi.
Yukio Mishima
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The period of childhood is a stage on which time and space become entangled.
Yukio Mishima
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I had no taste for defeat - much less victory - without a fight.
Yukio Mishima
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Other people must be destroyed. In order that I might truly face the sun, the world itself must be destroyed.
Yukio Mishima
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Within those confining walls, teachers - a bunch of men all armed with the same information - gave the same lectures every year from the same notebooks and every year at the same point in the textbooks made the same jokes.
Yukio Mishima
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if the world changed, i could not exist, and if i changed, the world could not exist
Yukio Mishima
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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.
Yukio Mishima
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Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter.
Yukio Mishima