Chōkōdō Shujin

Possibly a man who hates the land should dwell on shore forever. Alienation and the long voyages at sea will compel him once again to dream of it, torment him with the absurdity of longing for something that he loathes. Yukio Mishima 'The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea'

Beauty is something to be seen and felt, so the concept of beauty must be empty, but it is true that concepts about how to see and feel things form in our minds without our even realising it, and we see and feel things according to those concepts. Kobayashi, 'About Criticism'

The sound of the freezing of snow over the land seemed to roar deep into the earth. There was no moon. The stars, almost too many of them to be true, came forward so brightly that it was as if they were falling with the swiftness of the void. Yasunari Kawabata, 'Snow Country'

If there are many definite explanations of what man is, then there is nothing definite at all. Hideo Kobayashi, 'About Criticism'

We must think about what man is in relation to the fundamental conditions of his existence, in which he is simply thrown into the world without purpose or necessity, and lives anxiously and dangerously. Hideo Kobayashi, 'About Criticism'

Or had he not yet shaken off the spell of the evening landscape in that mirror? He wondered whether the flowing landscape was not perhaps symbolic of the passage of time. Yasunari Kawabata, 'Snow Country'

And the more continuous the assault became, the more he began to wonder what was lacking in him, what kept him from living as completely. He stood gazing at his own coldness, so to speak. Yasunari Kawabata, 'Snow Country'

Beauty has already been abandoned. But the peaks of truth and goodness may still be separated by the valley, still covered with snow. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, on Kan Kikuchi

--I don't have the strength to continue writing this. It is an indescribable pain to live with such a feeling. Will anyone gently strangle me in my sleep? Ryūnosuke Akutagawa March 1, 1892 - July 24, 1927

Beautiful is the life that perishes. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa March 1, 1892 - July 24, 1927

He could think of nothing in life that he especially desired, but those purple sparks - those wildly-blooming flowers of fire - he would trade his life for the chance to hold them in his hands. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, 'The Life of a Stupid Man' March 1, 1892 - July 24, 1927

All of life is not worth a single line of Baudelaire. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa March 1, 1892 - July 24, 1927

The word "culture" is meaningless unless the human spirit, when it confronts a definite object of reality, not necessarily nature, but history, creates some new value or form out of that object. Hideo Kobayashi, 'About Criticism'

In the end, even your last stronghold, yourself, will be obliterated by your strong critical spirit. Hideo Kobayashi, on criticism

Ideas that possess no tradition are always abstract. Language that has forgotten tradition is always false. Hideo Kobayashi, 'On Literary Criticism'

To be beautiful, tragedy is necessary. The more the hero is the master of the tragedy, the more beautiful the tragedy becomes. Yojūrō Yasuda, on Yukio Mishima

At that moment, all voices ceased. Twilight was silent. There was no crying night. Nor did the night whisper. A dying and terrible silence ruled the heavens and the seas. Heaven and sea became silence itself. Takeo Arishima, 'Tidal Fog'

But has not the dense bank of fog trampled into dust the efforts of humanity for thousands of years? Takeo Arishima, 'Fog'

As a dying person hurries towards death, so the sun hurried towards night. The sun lay in eternal death, surely nothing was left alive. Such were his frightened thoughts. Takeo Arishima, 'Fog'

I shall not sing, I shall not talk, I shall only be silent, I shall not read the stars, I shall not talk of the wind, I shall not think of the sorrows of my speech, I shall be silent, I shall keep myself still... Kōzō Takeuchi, 'Spoken arts'