Seppuku Quotes

Newsflash; not everything that drops from your gorgeous dumb mouth is the truth.” There’s a pause. “Ah, shit. I just called you gorgeous. Now I have to commit seppuku.” “Don’t you dare,” I mumble into her neck.

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead

At times because of one man’s evil, ten thousand people suffer. So you kill that one man to let the tens of thousands live. Here, truly, the blade that deals death becomes the sword that saves lives.

My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.” Early

«Like a fossil tree From which we gather no flowers Sad has been my life Fated no fruit to produce.» Death poem composed by Minamoto Yorimasa immediately before his act of seppuku in the Byodo-in temple of Uji.

With regards to the way of death, if you are prepared to die at any time, you will be able to meet your release from life with equanimity. As calamities are usually not as bad as anticipated beforehand, it is foolhardy to feel anxiety about tribulations not yet endured. Just accept that the worst possible fate for a man in service is to become a rōnin, or death by seppuku. Then nothing will faze you.

Blackthorne, beside the gates, was still turmoiled by his boundless joy at her reprieve and he remembered how his own will had been stretched that night of his near-seppuku, when he had had to get up as a man and walk home as a man unsupported, and became samurai. And he watched her, despising the need for this courage, yet understanding it, even honoring it.

All that matters is having single-minded purpose ( ichinen), in the here and now. Life is an ongoing succession of ‘one will’ at a time, each and every moment. A man who realizes this truth need not hurry to do, or seek, anything else anymore. Just live in the present with single-minded purpose. People forget this important truth, and keep seeking other things to accomplish.

Not to mention the fact that seppuku is the aristocracy of suicide. And I’m not saying that just because my parents called me Mishima.

Per otto anni ho vagato, senza accorgermi dell'avvicendarsi delle stagioni. Sono solo una foglia che appassisce, secca, muore, eppure l'albero rimane: modello di vita.

Brexit promised three hundred and fifty million a week for the NHS, they promised controls on immigration, they promised an end to the housing crisis, to the education crisis, to the economic crisis, to the …” “What I don’t understand is that when the British public voted to name a research vessel Boaty McBoatface, the government said no. But when we voted to commit cultural and economic seppuku, the powers-that-be didn’t seem to have a fucking clue …

Shinju in Japanese literally means "inside the heart." More fully, it implies that if the heart were cut open, there would be found only devotion to one's lover; thus, "revealing-the-heart death.

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.

We appear to be hardwired to punish those who have slighted us, even if—and this is the counterintuitive bit—even if our acts of vengeance hurt us more than those who have trespassed against us.

In Russia a café like this would have been closed down in a moment. In Europe they would have put the owner in prison. In the USA the proprietor would have been hit with an absolutely massive fine. And in Japan the boss of an establishment like this would have committed seppuku out of a sense of shame.

Matsu gathered up what little was left of the food and wrapped it back up in the furoshiki. 'I followed you and the others down to the beach yesterday morning. I wondered if you might try to find your way to peace as she did.' 'I couldn't,' I began to cry, turning away in shame. Then Matsu leaned over close to my ear. He smelled of sweat and the earth as he whispered, 'It takes greater courage to live.

Cities are the graveyard of Mankind.

The smallest multicorp killed more people than all the sex killers who ever lived, for a fucking profit margin—and the WTO gave them awards for it.

Whether we commit seppuku by our own hands or are crucified by the executioner, our ultimate end is to die. This is a band of death, but death with honor!

Musk actually said as much to one venture capitalist, informing him, “My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.

Purity, a concept that recalled flowers, the piquant mint taste of a mouthwash, a child clinging to its mother’s gentle breast, was something that joined all these directly to the concept of blood, the concept of swords cutting down iniquitous men, the concept of blades slashing down through the shoulder to spray the air with blood. And to the concept of seppuku. The moment that a samurai “fell like the cherry blossoms,” his blood-smeared corpse became at once like fragrant cherry blossoms. The concept of purity, then, could alter to the contrary with arbitrary swiftness. And so purity was the stuff of poetry. For Isao, to die purely seemed easy. But what about laughing purely? How to be pure in all respects was a problem that disturbed him. No matter how tight a rein he kept upon his emotions, there were times when some trivial thing would arise to make him laugh. Once, for example, he had laughed at a puppy frolicking at the side of the road, with a woman’s high-heeled shoe, of all things, in its mouth. It was the kind of laugh that he preferred others not to see.

Strangulation would be too harsh a punishment,” he said. “Ordering him to slit his belly open like a true samurai would be another matter, however.” Shuri looked at Usaemon with mocking eyes. Then he gave two or three hard shakes of his head. “No, that animal doesn’t deserve seppuku. Strangle him! Strangle him!

I'm serious, baby. The Doors are the only western rock band that really gets the heart and soul of Japan. A samurai knows that he can die at any time. That's what makes life precious. And don't even talk to me about lame hippie whiners like John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater revival. Jim Morrison . . . samurai! John Fogerty . . . ham on rye!

Fifty percent of all medical personnel graduate in the bottom half of their class.

walking on boulevards and beaches, examining postcards, studying angles of light and shadow

In 1970, nine years after he wrote ‘Patriotism’, Mishima died committing seppuku in a patriotic act of grieving for the fate of his nation. I was twenty-one years old at the time, watching the surrounding events on television in the university dining hall and wondering what I was seeing. Even after it finally dawned on me what this was about, I was unable to discover any urgent ‘meaning’ in Mishima’s act. If it taught me anything, it was that there existed a huge gulf between bringing an idea to a literary apotheosis and doing it as an act in the real world.

The sins I refer to have nothing to do with the law. And the greatest sin is that of a man who, finding himself in a world where the sacred light of His Majesty is obscured, nevertheless determines to go on living without doing anything about it. The only way to purge this grave sin is to make a fiery offering with one’s own hands, even if that itself is a sin, to express one’s loyalty in action, and then to commit seppuku immediately. With death, all is purified. But as long as a man goes on living, he can’t move either right or left, or take any action whatever, without sinning.

He stripped off the remainder of his upper garments, but, as his body tensed, the cold seemed to vanish. He unfastened his trousers, exposing his stomach. As he drew his knife out of its sheath, he heard cries and the sound of running footsteps from the direction of the orchard above. "The ocean. He must have got away in a boat," one pursuer called out shrilly. Isao drew in a deep breath and shut his eyes as he ran his left hand caressingly over his stomach. Grasping the knife with his right hand, he pressed its point against his body, and guided it to the correct place with the fingertips of his left hand. Then, with a powerful thrust of his arm, he plunged the knife into his stomach. The instant that the blade tore open his flesh, the bright disk of the sun soared up and exploded behind his eyelids.

Although there is no precise word for it in Japanese, a sort of "vicarious seppuku" was practiced during the Sengoku Jidai (The Era of Warfare) with the aim of saving the lives of many by the sacrifice of one life, often that of the most responsible person. For example, when Hideyoshi was warring with Mori Motonari, he decided to try to effect a reconciliation with the latter. At that time, Hideyoshi had under siege one of Mori's castles, which was commanded by Shimizu Muneharu. Hideyoshi offered to spare the rest of the garrison if Lord Mori would have Shimizu commit seppuku, to which Mori agreed. Connected to this episode is a moving example of junshi: On the eve of Shimizu's seppuku, his favorite vassal Shirai sent a request that Shimizu visit his room. When Shimizu arrived, Shirai apologized for having his master visit his humble quarters and explained that he had wanted to reassure his master that seppuku was not difficult and that he, Shimizu, should not be concerned about what he would have to do on the morrow. So saying, Shirai bared his abdomen to show that he himself had completed the act of seppuku only a moment before Shimizu's arrival. Shimizu gave Shirai his deepest thanks for his loyal devotion and assisted him in kaishaku, i.e., he beheaded him with his sword.

Sometimes when you see too much, you miss a lot.

Although the Japanese were said to be courteous and without deceit, they showed an alarming propensity for violence and brutality. They frequently strangled their own children—so as to avoid wasting precious food supplies—and had a strangely melancholic disposition. Ritual suicide—seppuku—was commonplace and often extremely bloody. Any man intent on taking his own life would dress in his finest silken costume, unsheathe an enormous curved sword, and, “lancing his body acrosse, from the breast downe all the belly, murthereth himselfe.

Experience can't be reduced to a 4x6 inch still," her mother says. "People stick their loves in cellophane prisons. They incarcerate images. Then they put these cemeteries on coffee tables. They're mockeries.

In this midday heat what good is heaven for? Nodding off to Billy Holiday Multinational Corporations and seppuku Handshakes and blow jobs for posterity's sake Rhetoric and gibberish like a wasteland of preteen cigarettes

Some faithful samurai chose to commit ritual suicide, known as seppuku,

Nobel, Nobel, de ce ne-ai părăsit? În timpul lecturii nici un cititor nu a fost rănit. Nimeni nu și-a tăiat venele, nu a băut cucută și nici nu și-a făcut seppuku! -Nobel, Nobel, de ce ne-ai părăsit? Au îmbătrânit toți intelectualii paharnicului Petrov. Așteptându-te.

From Drafts of a Suicide Note Hope is like that terrible Russian substitute for heroin, krokodil. One hit and you’re addicted...It’s the kind of habit that has no cure except death. (207) For anyone who’s insignificant to themselves, happiness is a cover-up. (260) Dreaming of blackness and seppuku. (282)

С каждым пересказом самообладание Сайго становилось всё более полным, его монолог, обращенный к Бэппу, всё более длинным, а напряженность этой сцены всё более интенсивной. ... Невзирая на физиологию, традиция требовала, чтобы Сайго сел на раздробленное бедро и спокойно попросил Бэппу помочь ему умереть. Сайго был легендой, и японские СМИ решили тиражировать легенду, а не реального человека.

You can't know a father. They're all magicians. Got two million years of strings and mirrors in their pockets.

What I don’t understand is that when the British public voted to name a research vessel Boaty McBoatface, the government said no. But when we voted to commit cultural and economic seppuku, the powers-that-be didn’t seem to have a fucking clue …

Now my readers will understand that seppuku was not a mere suicidal process. It was an institution, legal and ceremonial. An invention of the Middle Ages, it was a process by which warriors could expiate their crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity. When enforced as a legal punishment, it was practiced with due ceremony. It was a refinement of self-destruction, and none could perform it without the utmost coolness of temper and composure of demeanor, and for these reasons it was particularly befitting the profession of bushi.

As 'the pen is mightier than the sword', would an unsuccessful Japanese author commit seppuku with his pen?

There’s a moment of silence, then the gates swing open. The last fifty yards up to the circular drive are dicey. The car finally commits seppuku halfway around the circle. Steam geysers from the radiator. Darker things leak from below.

The essence of humanity’s spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. —E. O. Wilson I would gladly lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins. —J. B. S. Haldane