[its-always-the-quiet-girl-deact]

For everything sacred has the substance of dreams and memories, and so we experience the miracle of what is separated from us by time or distance suddenly being made tangible. Dreams, memories, the sacred—they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.

Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

[skvoreshniki-deactivated2023020]

“He had simply become the captive of the egoistic and melancholy conviction that henceforth his life would definitely end and he would never achieve greatness. But had he ever really desired that in life?”

— Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

What is so ghastly about exposed intestines? Why, when we see the insides of a human being, do we have to cover our eyes in terror? Why are people so shocked at the sight of blood pouring out? Why are a man’s intestines ugly? Is it not exactly the same in quality as the beauty of youthful, glossy skin?

Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Artist: Takato Yamamoto

[retrospecters-blog]

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

The apparently indestructible beauty of the Golden Temple gave rise to the possibility of destroying it.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

Mortal things like human beings cannot be eradicated; indestructible things like the Golden Temple can be destroyed.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

If I were to set fire to the Golden Temple, which had been designated as a National Treasure in 1897, I should be committing an act of pure destruction, of irreparable ruin, an act which would truly decrease the volume of beauty that human beings had created in this world.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

By my deed I should thrust the world in which the Golden Temple existed into a world where it did not exist.

The meaning of the world would surely change.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

The end and downfall of the world – of that world which now surrounded me and lay before my eyes – were not far off.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

When the Golden Temple has been burned down – yes, when the Golden Temple has been burned, the world of these fellows will be transformed, the golden rule of their lives will be turned upside down, their train timetables will be thrown into utter confusion, their laws will be without effect.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

For a moment I felt that I was on the verge of being caught up once more in the charm of life or in an envy for life.

But instantly the dark forces brought me back to myself and abducted me from such ideas.

Yes, I must burn the Golden Temple after all. Only then could a new life begin that was made specially to order for myself.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

It may seem strange that I do not give an account of how, having once made this decision, I soon became unsettled and began to waver back and forth. The fact is that such waverings were now a thing of the past.

During this period of half a year my eyes were fixed steadfastly on a single point in the future. It may well have been at this time I knew the meaning of happiness.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

When I thought that, whatever happened, the Golden Temple was going to be burned down, unbearable things became quite bearable.

Like someone who is anticipating his death, I now began to make myself agreeable to the other people in the temple. My manner became pleasant and I tried to reconcile myself to everything.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

In front of him lay fire and destruction; behind was the world of order that he had abandoned.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result, in feeling that the decision to bring about this result rested in my own hands – here lay the basis for my sense of freedom.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

In those days the fires used to be on intimate terms with each other. The fires were not divided into little fragments and looked down on, as they are nowadays, but were allowed to join hands with each other in such a way that countless separate fires could unite into a single grand blaze.

The people of the time were probably like that also. Wherever a fire might be, it could call to another fire and its voice would immediately be heard.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

[yukio-mishima-quotes]

It was truly by the rarest chance that the Golden Temple had escaped being burned down.

For Buddhist principles and law had strictly governed the world - fires broke out naturally, destruction and negation were the order of the day, the great temples that had been built were inevitably burned down.

–Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion