Yukio Mishima
Japanese · 1925–1970
Japanese novelist, playwright, and essayist whose extravagant literary vision fused classical Japanese aesthetics with modernist intensity. Obsessed with beauty, death, and the body, his work charts Japan's spiritual crisis in the wake of tradition's collapse.
Wikipedia ↗“私にはまだ一行、もう一行、もう一行と書きつづけてゆく以外に生きのびる方法がない。”
Japanese
“I still have no way to survive but to keep writing one line, one more line, one more line...”
“この世界を変えるのは認識だ。わかるかね。この世界のどんなことも変えることのできるのは認識だけだ。認識だけが、世界を変えると同時に、そのままにしておくことができるのだ。”
Japanese
“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.”
“真の美とは、人を襲い、圧倒し、奪い、ついには滅ぼすものである。”
Japanese
“True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.”
“人間の生と芸術との最高の接点は行動の形をとる。そしてあらゆる行動の形式のうちで最も精妙なのは、運動する肉体の美——走り、闘い、踊る肉体の美である。”
Japanese
“The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the form of action. And the most exquisite of all forms of action is the beauty of the body in movement — the beauty of the running, fighting, or dancing body.”
“英雄崇拝を滑稽と見るシニシズムには、常に肉体的劣等感の影がさしている。”
Japanese
“The cynicism that regards hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical inferiority.”
“完全な純粋さは、人生を一滴の血で書かれた一行の詩に変えるなら可能である。”
Japanese
“Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.”