The Temple of Dawn Quotes

“السقوط في الحب امتياز خاص يُمنح لشخص يسمح له مظهره الخارجي، وفتنته الحسية، وجهله الداخلي، وافتقاره للتنظيم، وغياب إدراكه، بتشكيل نوع من الصورة الخيالية عن الآخرين.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“The living and the dead,
The awake and the sleeping,
The young and the old are all one and the same.
When the ones change, they become the others.
When those shift again, they become these again.

God is day and night.
God is winter and summer.
God is war and peace.
God is fertility and famine.
He transforms into many things.

Day and night are one.
Goodness and badness are one.
The beginning and the end of a circle are one.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Better to be caught in sudden, complete catastrophe than to be gnawed by the cancer of imagination.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Man always finds the omens he wants.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“On reflection, falling in love for him was not only extraordinary, but rather comical. By having closely observed Kiyoaki Matsugae, he knew full well what sort of man should fall in love.
Falling in love was a special privilege given to someone whose external, sensuous charm and internal ignorance, disorganization, and lack of cognizance permitted him to form a kind of fantasy about others. It was a rude privilege. Honda was quite aware that since his childhood, he had been the opposite of such a man.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Life strove mightily to exile orthodoxy, hospitalize heresy, and trap humanity into stupidity. It was an accumulation of used bandages soiled with layers of blood and pus. Life was the daily changing of the bandages of the heart that made the incurably sick, young and old alike, cry out in pain.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Buddhism suddenly deteriorated in India sometime after the fourth century of the Christian era. It has been rightly said that Hinduism stifled it in its friendly embrace. Like Christianity and Judaism in Judea and Confucianism and Taoism in China, Buddhism had to be exiled from India for it to become a world religion. It was necessary for India to turn to a more primitive folk religion. Hinduism perfunctorily retained the name Buddha in a far corner of its pantheon, where he was preserved as the ninth of the ten avatars of Vishnu.

Vishnu is believed to assume ten transfigurations: Matsya, the fish; Kurma, the land tortoise; Varha, the boar; Narasimha, the man-lion; Vamana, the dwarf; Parashurama; Rama; Krishna; the Buddha; and the Kalki. According to the Brahmans, Vishnu, assuming the form of Buddha, purposely introduced a heretical religion so that believers would be led astray, thus presenting the opportunity for the Brahmans to lead them back to their true religion -- Hinduism.

Thus, along with the decline of Buddhism the cave temples at Ajanta in western India fell into ruin and became known to the world only twelve centuries later, in 1819, when a British Army corps chanced upon them.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“However, whatever frightening mask it might assume, the national spirit in its original state was of pristine whiteness. Traveling through a country like Thailand, Honda realized more clearly than ever the simplicity and purity of things Japanese, like transparent stream water
through which one could glimpse pebbles below, or the probity of Shinto rites. Honda’s life was not imbued with such spirit. Like the majority of Japanese he ignored it, behaving as though it did not exist and surviving by
escaping from it. All his life he had dodged things fundamental and artless: white silk, clear cold water, the zigzag white paper of the exorciser’s staff fluttering in the breeze, the sacred precinct marked by a torii, the gods’
dwelling in the sea, the mountains, the vast ocean, the Japanese sword with its glistening blade so pure and sharp. Not only Honda, but the vast majority of Westernized Japanese, could no longer stand such intensely native elements.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Honda knew very well that he had lost all physical qualifications for that. His hair had grown thin, his sideburns were streaked with white, and his stomach had swollen like remorse itself. All characteristics of early old age which he had considered so ugly as a youth now marked his body unsparingly. Of course, even when young, he had never regarded himself handsome, like Kiyoaki, but he had not thought himself particularly ugly either. At least he had not found it necessary to place himself among the negative numbers in a world of beauty and construct his equations in consequence. Why was it now when his ugliness had become so obvious, the world about him was still beautiful? This was indeed far worse than death itself; the worst death!”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Since she seemed upset, I gave her some chartreuse and let her sleep.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“Falling in love was a special privilege given to someone whose external, sensuous charm and internal ignorance, disorganization, and lack of cognizance permitted him to form a kind of fantasy about others. It was a rude privilege.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“Honda knew nothing of her past, but she seemed like a sad bit of fruit pickled in the vinegar of grief.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“When a picture is removed from the wall where it has long hung, it leaves a fresh whiteness the exact size and shape of the frame.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“Oh, my, eggs! How unusual to see eggs these days! I feel as if I haven’t seen one for years! Heavens, eggs!”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“The beautiful, bow-shaped winter lips of the women created a momentary crevice, attractive and warm, in the clear air as they passed by. The heroes in the bombers must dream at times of just such lips. Young men were always like that, seeking the most rigorous and yet attracted to the most tender. Could the tenderest thing they seek be death? Honda himself had once been a young man of promise, but not one attracted to death.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“Everything had the tone of the listless, repetitive sutra chanting of the tropics, and yet was curiously imbued with simulated vivacity.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“By and large, there’s no mystery in human life. Mystery remains only in the arts, and the reason is that mystery makes sense only in art.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“People have long lived in fear of too much freedom, too much carnal desire. The freshness of the morning after an evening when one has abstained from drinking wine. The pride one feels on realizing that water alone is essential. Such refreshing, new pleasures were beginning to seduce people.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“Having abandoned altruistic ideals, he had become a much better lawyer. No longer having any passions, he was successful in saving others in one case after the other. He accepted no assignment unless the client was wealthy, no matter whether the case was civil or criminal.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn: The Sea of Fertility, 3

“Oamenii din „Ținutul Rodiei” sunt foarte înțelepți; știu că există doar două roluri pentru ființele din această lume: cei care țin minte și cei care sunt ținuți minte.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“Puterea creativă a artiștilor din ținut este folosită pentru a născoci diverse modalități de măcel. Cu alte cuvinte, sunt teatre prin toată țara destinate crimelor sexuale, în care tinerii frumoși și domnișoarele frumoase sunt distribuiți în diverse roluri, sfârșind prin a fi omorâți. Recreează personaje mitologice și istorice care au fost ucise cu sadism; normal că sunt și multe creații noi. Sunt asasinați cu fast, poartă costume splendide, într-o lumină frumoasă, în niște decoruri deosebite, pe o muzică extraordinară. De obicei, ei sunt batjocoriți de majoritatea oamenilor din audiență cât sunt în agonie, iar apoi sunt devorați.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“„Urâțenia mea este specială”, s-a gândit el, redobândindu-și încrederea imediat.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

“How alike were the voices of pleasure and death!”
― Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn