N. Kazantzakis Quotes

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

You gave me your curse, holy Fathers. I give you a blessing: May you be as moral and religious as I am.

Inexperience loves to preach.

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

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!

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

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

What happiness this is: to fly, skimming over the earth just as we do in our dreams! Life has become a dream. Can this be the meaning of paradise?

Each man must have his own special route to lead him to God.

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

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

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.

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 surrender myself to everything. I love, I feel pain, I struggle. The world seems to me wider than the mind, my heart a dark and almighty mystery.

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.

No wide road leads to God.

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.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Two equally steep and bold paths may lead to the same peak. To act as if death did not exist, or to act thinking every minute of death, is perhaps the same thing.

Yes, there is weeping, even in heaven, but it is for those who are still crawling on the earth.

Life's true face is the skull.

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.

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.

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

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

Die every day. Be reborn again every day.

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.

Before me is the abyss. How can I leap across it? And if I do not leap, how shall I ever be able to reach God?

Monarch of earth, I shall confess my secret craft: I've always fought to purify wild flame to light, and kindle whatever light I found to burst in flame.

Lord, bend me, or I shall rot. Lord do not bend me too much, for I shall break. Lord bend me too much, who cares if I break!

How could I, who loved life so intensely, have let myself be entangled for so long in that balderdash of books and paper blackened with ink!

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