Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.

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

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

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

Time is round, and it rolls quickly.

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.

Reach what you cannot

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?

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

I should learn to run, to wrestle, to swim, to ride horses, to row, to drive a car, to fire a rifle. I should fill my soul with flesh. I should fill my flesh with soul. In fact, I should reconcile at last within me the two internal antagonists.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Good Lord, how can the rich bear to die?

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

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.

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.

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

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

I say one thing, you write another, and those who read you understand still something else! I say: cross, death, kingdom of heaven, God...and what do you understand? Each of you attaches his own suffering, interests and desires to each of these sacred words, and my words disappear, my soul is lost. I can't stand it any longer!

Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break.

Lions and Lambs, love and force, light and fire, good and evil: all things climb the same mountain, the mountain of God.

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

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.

I was ill before I fell ill.

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

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?

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

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

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