Nikos kazantzakis quotes

Ah, if you could dance all that you've just said, then I'd understand.

I possess no weapon but love. With that I have come to do battle. Help me!

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality," says one of my favorite Byzantine mystics. I did this when a child; I do it now as well in the most creative moments of my life.

God, what is all this talk put out by the popes? Paradise is here, my good man. God, give me no other paradise!

Never in my life have I feared death as much as I feared that resurrection.

We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.

Every obstacle in his journey became a milestone, an occasion for further triumph. We have a model in front of us now, a model who blazes our trail and gives us strength.

When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags—without desires—shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I—free, fearless, and blissful—retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?

How does the light of a star set out and plunge into black eternity in its immortal course? The star dies, but the light never dies; such also is the cry of freedom.

This book was not written because I wanted to offer a supreme model to the man who struggles; I wanted to show him that he must not fear pain, temptation or death - because all three can be conquered, all three have already been conquered. Christ suffered pain, and since then pain has been sanctified. Temptation fought until the very last moment to lead him astray, and Temptation was defeated. Christ died on the Cross, and at that instant death was vanquished forever.

What is truth? What is falsehood? Whatever gives wings to men, whatever produces great works and great souls and lifts up a man's height above the earth - that's true. Whatever clips off man's wings - that's false.

Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons.

The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.

The dual substance of Christ - the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God. [...] has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. [...] My principle anguish and source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh. [...] And my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met.

By believing passionately in that which doesn't exist, you create it and that which has not been sufficiently desired is what we call the non existent.

Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’ Which of us was right, boss?

God is action, complete with mistakes, fumblings, persistence, agony. God is not the power that has found eternal equilibrium, but the power that is forever breaking every equilibrium, forever searching for a higher one.

God sends rain, but He also sends hoods; and when the rain grows heavier, He sends a cave.

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

Whoever climbed the Lord's mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart; otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.

I felt this was my duty, my sole duty: to reconcile the irreconcilables, to draw the thick ancestral darkness out of my loins and transform it, to the best of my ability, into light.

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.

I loved my body and did not want it to perish; I loved my soul and did not want it to decay. I have fought to reconcile these two primordial forces.

Go as far as you can. Go further than you can!

No! No! Never acknowledge the limitations of man. Smash all boundaries! Deny whatever your eyes see. Die every moment, but say: Death does not exist.'

My soul comes from better worlds and I have an incurable homesickness of the stars.

You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.

Throughout my life, my greatest benefactors have been my dreams and my travels; very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggle.

We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence.

To succeed, you must first believe you can.

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.

We are not men, to have need of another, an eternal life; we are women, and for us one moment with man we love is everlasting Paradise, one moment far from the man we love is everlasting hell. It is here on earth that we women love out eternity

As I watched the seagulls, I thought, That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust.

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness.

There is only one sin god will not forgive Boss, and that is to deny a woman who is in wanting ~ Zorba

The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh. Its perceptions are still coarse and brutish. It can divine nothing clearly, nothing with certainty.

When an almond tree became covered with blossoms in the heart of winter, all the trees around it began to jeer. 'What vanity,' they screamed, 'what insolence! Just think, it believes it can bring spring in this way!' The flowers of the almond tree blushed for shame. 'Forgive me, my sisters,' said the tree. 'I swear I did not want to blossom, but suddenly I felt a warm springtime breeze in my heart.

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don't decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.

As long as there are flowers and children and birds in the world, have no fears: everything will be fine.

Truly, everything in this world depended on time. Time ripened all. If you had time, you succeeded in working the human mud internally and turning it into spirit. Then you did not fear death. If you did not have time, you perished.

In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.

Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.

For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.

You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.

Be sure to live up to your reputation for honesty and goodness, because many souls who believe you to be honest and good have placed themselves in your hands.

I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect. Night has fallen.

When everyone drowns and I'm the only one to escape, God is protecting me. When everyone else is saved and I'm the only one to drown, God is protecting me then too.

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning, I thought. Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics; woe to anyone who begins to decipher them and guess what they mean.... When you see them, you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later, too late, that you understand.

Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.

All the political, social, and economic improvements, all the technical progress cannot have any regenerating significance, so long as our inner life remains as it is at present. The more the intelligence unveils and violates the secrets of Nature, the more the danger increases and the heart shrinks.

Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.

The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love.

We're going to start with small, easy things; then, little by little we shall try our hand at the big things. And after that, after we finish the big things, we shall undertake the impossible.

The more devils we have within us, the more chance we have to form angels.

The masses do not see the Sirens. They do not hear songs in the air. Blind, deaf, stooping, they pull at their oars in the hold of the earth. But the more select, the captains, harken to a Siren within them...and royally squander their lives with her.

Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.

Death's dry bones glowed with light in the erotic dark but he woke not nor felt the two warm bodies merge; the male worm then took heart and in his wife's ear whispered: "With one sweet kiss, dear wife, we've conquered conquering Death!

I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me.

The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.

God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.

When I encounter a sunrise, a painting, a woman, or an idea that makes my heart bound like a young calf, then I know I am standing in front of happiness.

I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards [...] and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence.

Man hurries, God does not. That is why man's works are uncertain and maimed, while God's are flawless and sure. My eyes welling with tears, I vowed never to transgress this eternal law again. Like a tree I would be blasted by wind, struck by sun and rain, and would wait with confidence; the long-desired hour of flowering and fruit would come.

It was certainly not this mummified and outrageously painted old woman he was seeing before him, but the entire "female species," as it was his custom to call women. The individual disappeared, the features were obliterated, whether young or senile, beautiful or ugly - those were mere unimportant variations. Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite.

All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.

My principle anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

God changes appearances every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises. One moment he is a glass of fresh water, the next, your son bouncing on your knees or an enchanting woman, or perhaps merely a morning walk.

Three kinds of souls, three prayers: 1) I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot. 2) Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break. 3) Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break.

In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.

What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The I and the you vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved.

We have our brush and colors - paint Paradise and in we go.

Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.

Be always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, smash it! The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.

This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.

As you walk, you cut open and create that river bed into which the stream of your descendants shall enter and flow.

The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything- as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.

Man is able, and has the duty, to reach the furthest point on the road he has chosen. Only by means of hope can we attain what is beyond hope.

You will, Judas, my brother. God will give you the strength, as much as you lack, because it is necessary—it is necessary for me to be killed and for you to betray me. We two must save the world. Help me." Judas bowed his head. After a moment he asked, "If you had to betray your master, would you do it?" Jesus reflected for a long time. Finally he said, "No, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to. That is why God pitied me and gave me the easier task: to be crucified.

Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns; it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies, they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm, the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air. I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song, for I know well that only words, that words alone, like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death.

A woman's body is a dark and monstrous mystery; between her supple thighs a heavy whirlpool swirls, two rivers crash, and woe to him who slips and falls!

Time is round, and it rolls quickly.

The only way to save yourself is to endeavor to save others.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

You do miracles if you concentrate your mind on one thing and one thing only.

Reach what you cannot

Beauty always had a purpose: to be of service to life.

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.

To cleave that sea [the Aegean] in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man into paradise.

I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.

Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.

The sole way to save oneself is to save others. Or to struggle to save others -even that is sufficient.

If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.

The canary is like a man's soul. It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings.

Life's true face is the skull.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. inscription on Kazantakis's tomb in Heraklion, Greece

There is no harsher means of punishment, than to answer malice with kindness.

He who is invisible sees more clearly, hears more clearly, and is better able to read the thoughts of men.

A slave's soul has no worth, my brothers; it lacks strength to tread on this great earth with gallantry and freedom. I pity the poor slaves, they're nought but airy mist, a light breeze scatters them, a fragrance knocks them down; it's only just they crawl on the earth on hands and knees. Today I'll write a hymn to God and pray for this great grace.

I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free .

What first truly stirred my soul was not fear or pain, nor was it pleasure or games; it was the yearning for freedom. I had to gain freedom-but from what, from whom? Little by little, in the course of time, I mounted freedom's rough unaccommodating ascent. To gain freedom first of all from the Turk, that was the initial step; after that, later, this new struggle began: to gain freedom from the inner Turk-from ignorance, malice and envy, from fear and laziness, from dazzling false ideas; and finally from idols, all of them, even the most revered and beloved.

Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.

It doesn't matter whether or not you have a head, you must wear the right sort of hat

I believe I'm a caterpillar buried deep down under the ground. The entire earth is above me, crushing me and I begin to bore through the soil, making a passage to the surface so that I can penetrate the crust and issue into the light. It's hard work boring through the entire earth, but I'm able to be patient because I have a strong premonition that as soon as I do issue into the light I shall become a butterfly.

If only we know, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say. Maybe they call-call us-and we don't hear them. When will people's ears open, boss? When shall we have our eyes open to see? When shall we open our arms to embrace everything-stones, rain, flowers, and people? What do you think about that, boss? And what do your books have to say about that?

When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.

I said only one word, brought only one message: Love. Love - nothing else.

Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.

I've stopped thinking all the time of what happened yesterday. And stopped asking what's going to happen tomorrow. What's happening today, this minute, is what I care about.

Today, any action anywhere on earth has an immediate repercussion on all five continents. News of a victory of the Eastern armies in Morocco or Shanghai travels instantly, thanks to modern means of communication, to all Eastern peoples and fills them with enthusiasm and faith. This phenomenon is, of course, unprecedented in the history of man.

All my life I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, a new meaning to death, and to console mankind.

the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!

Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?

Only after I've seen the visible can I imagine what the invisible is.

The struggle between God and man breaks out in everyone, together with the longing for reconciliation. Most often this struggle is unconscious and short-lived. A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends. But among responsible men, men who keep their eyes riveted day and night upon the Supreme Duty, the conflict between flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.

The landscape affects the human psyche - the soul, the body and the innermost contemplations - like music. Every time you feel nature deeper you resonate better with her, finding new elements of balance and freedom.

I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.

All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?

Die every day. Be reborn again every day.

The ultimate, most holy form of theory is action.