Quote

The mind, by its very nature, persistently tries to live forever, resisting age and attempting to give itself a form... . When a person passes his prime and his life begins to lose true vigor and charm, his mind starts functioning as if it were another form of life it imitates what life does, eventually doing what life cannot do.

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
Person
Another
Prime
Persistently
Live
True
Starts
Functioning
Giving
Nature
Eventually
Vigor
Trying
Cannot
Begins
Resisting
Mind
Form
Lose
Attempting
Life
Doe
Loses
Passes
Give
Forever
Tries
Persons
Age
Charm
Imitates

More quotes by Yukio Mishima

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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.
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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...of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.
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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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
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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.
Yukio Mishima
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It is a common failing of childhood to think that if one makes a hero out of a demon the demon will be satisfied.
Yukio Mishima
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It is a rather risky matter to discuss a happiness that has no need of words.
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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The images which the [press] photographer has filtered from reality, whether particular events or the anguish of human reactions to them, already bear a stamp of authenticity which the photographer is powerless to alter by one jot or tittle the meaning of the objects, by a process of purification, itself becomes the theme of the work.
Yukio Mishima
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Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result
Yukio Mishima
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The most appropriate type of daily life for me was a day-by-day world destruction peace was the most difficult and abnormal state to live in.
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
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Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?
Yukio Mishima
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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.
Yukio Mishima
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A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything.
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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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.
Yukio Mishima
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We live in an age in which there is no heroic death.
Yukio Mishima