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.
Interpretation
Young individuals often believe their experiences are unique, not realizing they echo past generations.
This quote by Yukio Mishima highlights the common tendency among youth to view their experiences and ideas as groundbreaking or novel. However, it suggests that, in reality, these thoughts and actions are likely repetitions of what previous generations have already encountered, thereby inviting reflection on the cyclical nature of human behavior and the influence of history on personal experiences.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a graduation ceremony to remind students of the value of learning from past generations.
What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.
a samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function’, one cog in a machine.
When a captive lion steps out of his cage, he comes into a wider world than the lion who has known only the wilds. While he was in captivity, there were only two worlds for him - the world of the cage, and the world outside the cage. Now he is free. He roars. He attacks people. He eats them. Yet he is not satisfied, for there is no third world that is neither the world of the cage nor the world outside the cage.
…the samurai ethic is a political science of the heart, designed to control such discouragement and fatigue in order to avoid showing them to others. It was thought more important to look healthy than to be healthy, and more important to seem bold and daring than to be so. This view of morality, since it is physiologically based on the special vanity peculiar to men, is perhaps the supreme male view of morality.
Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?
Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result
To be seduced by Orators, as a Monarch by Flatterers.
I have no quarrel with what I learned in the Presbyterian church - I am still an enthusiastic Christian. But why shouldn't I try to learn more? Why shouldn't I go to Hindu services? Why shouldn't I go to Muslim services? If you are not egotistical, you will welcome the opportunity to learn more.
What is well rooted cannot be pulled up. What is firmly grasped will not slip loose. It will be honoured from generation to generation.
You should employ your little grey cells.
As charms are nonsense,_x000D_ nonsense is a charm.
There is nothing Madison Avenue can give us that will make us more beautiful women. We are beautiful because God created us that way.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.