You are currently browsing the archive for the Hagakure category.
“One who in wartime employs rough and manly words appropriate to an age of war and in time of peace words appropriate to peacetime, is not a samurai. It is essential for a samurai to maintain logical consistency, and if one must show valor in one’ s action during times of chaos, then one must demonstrate equal valor in words during a peaceful age.”
- Yukio Mishima, Mishima on Hagakure
“What is strength? It is not to be carried away by attempts at wisdom. It is not to go overboard in judgment. Jōchō knew what it was like to watch patiently while his motivation to action was crushed by wisdom and judgment. And he had seen many people lose their strength as they reached the age of discernment, so that even their newly gained wisdom and judgment were rendered ineffectual. There is a delicate paradox here. If one gains wisdom only at the age of forty, one must retain the strength to put it to use. Most of us do not, however. This is Jōchō ’s warning.”
- Yukio Mishima, Mishima on Hagakure
“…just as the ancient Greeks associated aesthetics with ethics, morality in Hagakure is determined by aesthetics. What is beautiful must be strong, vivid, and brimming with energy. This is the first principle; the second is that what is moral must be beautiful. It does not mean taking great care over clothing and becoming effeminate, but rather it brings together beauty and ethical goals in the greatest possible tension.”
- Yukio Mishima, Mishima on Hagakure
