There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.
Interpretation
Fear and uncertainty arise not from existence itself, but from the act of living.
This quote by Yukio Mishima emphasizes that existence in its purest form is devoid of fear and uncertainty. Instead, it is the complexities and challenges of living—our experiences, thoughts, and emotions—that generate these feelings, suggesting that fear is a construct of our interpretation of life rather than an inherent aspect of existence itself.
In practice
During a motivational speech to encourage risk-taking in life.
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.
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.
Is there not a sort of remorse that precedes sin? Was it remorse at the very fact that I existed?
One can experience loneliness in two ways: by feeling lonely in the world or by feeling the loneliness of the world.
The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.
Neither a Fortress nor a Maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.
A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.
You have agency, and you are free to choose. But there is actually no free agency. Agency has its price. You have to pay the consequences of your choices.
You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
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