Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. inscription on Kazantakis's tomb in Heraklion, Greece
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.
Lions and Lambs, love and force, light and fire, good and evil: all things climb the same mountain, the mountain of God.
Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time.
O Sun, great Oriental, my proud mind's golden cap, I love to wear you cocked askew, to play and burst in song throughout our lives, and so rejoice our hearts.
It is impossible for me to remember how many days or weeks went by in this way. Time is round, and it rolls quickly.
Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.
Never in my life had I felt so tangibly and with such astonishment that hate, by passing successively through comprehension, mercy, and sympathy, can be transformed into love.
Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and others, I’m told, into God.” - Zorba.
Luck is blind, they say. It can’t see where it’s going and keeps running into people…and the people it knocks into we call lucky! Well, to hell with luck if it's like that, I say!
But then I was young, and to be young means to undertake to demolish the world and to have the gall to wish to erect a new and better one in its place.
When you've made up your mind, no use lagging behind, go ahead and no relenting, Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.
You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else - he never dares cut the rope and be free.
Madness, Brother Masseo, is the salt which prevents good sense from rotting.
But how can anyone put a bridle on man's vanity and arrogance? But how can Purity walk the earth without covering her feet with mud?
It's possible to save oneself from Satan, Father Francis, but from men—never!
I said to the almond tree, 'Friend, speak to me of God, ' and the almond tree blossomed.
I felt deep within me that 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!
