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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. You may ask what good is does us. Let's put it this way - human beings possess the weapon of knowledge in order to make life bearable. For animals such things aren't necessary. Animals don't need knowledge or anything of the sort to make life bearable. But human beings do need something, and with knowledge they can make the very intorelableness of life a weapon, though at the same time that intorelableness is not reduced in the slightest. That's all there is to it.

Yukio Mishima#1

PhilosophyLifeEnduranceKnowledgePerspective

About this quote

What does it mean?
Mishima argues that knowledge transforms one's view of the world without changing reality, making life bearable.
In plain terms
Knowledge changes how we see the world, helping us cope without fixing reality.
What can you take from it?
Understanding the world helps endure it without changing it.

Where it applies

  • philosophical inquiry
  • personal coping
  • intellectual exercise

Putting it to work

  • reframing view
  • seeking understanding
  • building resilience

Questions to consider

  • Can understanding make pain bearable?
  • What changes if reality stays the same?

Another view

Knowledge alone may not provide emotional relief for everyone.

More from Yukio Mishima

  1. I've never done much, but I've lived my whole life thinking of myself as the only real man. And if I'm right, then a limpid, lonely horn is going to trumpet th…

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  2. According to Eshin's 'Essentials of Salvation,' the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the joys of the Pure Land.

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent wh…

    Permalink to quote #4

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