Best 177 quotes of Nikos Kazantzakis on MyQuotes

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

Alas for him who seeks salvation in good only! Balanced on God's strong shoulders, Good and Evil flap together like two mighty wings and lift him high.

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.

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.

All roads lead to the earth; the abyss leads to God. Jump!

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.

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?

A magical portal opened inside my mind and conducted me into an astonishing world. [...] Before this moment I had divined but had never known with such positiveness that the world is extremely large and that suffering and toil are the companions and fellow warriors not only of Cretan, but of every man. [...] That by means of poetry all this suffering and effort could be transformed into dream; no matter how much of the ephemeral existed, poetry could immortalize it by turning it into song.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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?

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.

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

Cursed be all those on land and sea who eat their fill, cursed be all those who starve yet raise no hand in protest, cursed be all the bread, the wine, the meat which day by day descends deep in the entrails of the exploited man and turns not into freedom's cry, the murderer's ruthless knife!

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!

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

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.

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

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.

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning.

Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

Happy the youth who believes that his duty is to remake the world and bring it more in accord with virtue and justice, more in accord with his own heart. Woe to whoever commences his life without lunacy.

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!

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.

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

I hate all virtues based on food and bloated bellies; though food and drink are good, I'm better slaked and fed by that inhuman flame which burns in our black bowels. I like to name that flame which burns within me God!

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.

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