...of All The Kinds Of

As Usual, It Occurred To Me That Words Were The Only Thing That Could Possibly Save Me From This Situation. This Was A Characteristic Misunderstanding On My Part. When Action Was Needed, I Was Absorbed In Words; For Words Proceeded With Such Difficulty From My Mouth That I Was Intent On Them And Forgot All About Action. It Seemed To Me That Actions, Which Are Dazzling, Varied Things, Must Always Be Accompanied By Equally Dazzling And Equally Varied Words.

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.

…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.

What Transforms This World Is - Knowledge. Do You See What I Mean? Nothing Else Can Change Anything In This World. Knowledge Alone Is Capable Of Transforming The World, While At The Same Time Leaving It Exactly As It Is. When You Look At The World With Knowledge, You Realize That Things Are Unchangeable And At The Same Time Are Constantly Being Transformed.

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.