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a samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function’, one cog in a machine.

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
Men
Machine
Total
Degenerated
Machines
Cogs
Function
Samurai
Skills
Absorbed
Completely
Technical
Human
Whereas
Humans
Skill

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The past does not only draw us back to the past. There are certain memories of the past that have strong steel springs and, when we who live in the present touch them, they are suddenly stretched taut and then they propel us into the future.
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Human beings - they go on being born and dying, dying and being born. It's kind of boring, isn't it?
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Nobody even imagines how well one can lie about the state of one’s own heart.
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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.
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I want to make a poem of my life.
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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.
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If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death No death may be called futile.
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For an artist to do creative work, he needs at once physical health and some physiomental ill health. He needs both serenity and gloom.
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The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority
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There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.
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The only people in this world I really trust are my fans - even if they do forget you so fast.
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Possessing by letting go of things was a secret of ownership unknown to youth.
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Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result
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...of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The period of childhood is a stage on which time and space become entangled.
Yukio Mishima