Nikos Kazantzakis quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis on Wise Famous Quotes.

It is impossible for me to remember how many days or weeks went by in this way. Time is round, and it rolls quickly.

Only one woman exists in this world, one woman with countless faces.

I pity the village where no one is a saint, but I also pity the village where everyone is a saint!

Life's true face is the skull.

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

I hope for nothing
I fear nothing
I am free

What a miracle life is and how alike are all souls when they send their roots down deep and meet and are one!

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

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

I fight to embrace the entire circle of human activity to the full extent of my ability.

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

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

My principal anguish, and the wellspring of all my joys and sorrows, has been the incessant merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

No wide road leads to God.

Leave your books alone. Aren't you ashamed? Man is a wild beast, and wild beasts don't read.

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

If you have faith, a splinter from an old door will become a holy relic. And if you have no faith the entire holy cross will become an old door.

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

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?

My 'Report to Greco' is not an autobiography.

On the way between nothingness and God, we dance and weep.

Time is not a field, to be measured in rods, nor a sea, to be measured in miles; it is a heart beat.

I'm fighting to save myself, and save myself, I will. Mary Magdalene in The Last Temptation of Christ

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

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

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?

To do the will of God means to do my own most deeply hidden will. Within even the most unworthy of men there is a servant of God, asleep.

Leave nothing for death but a burned-out castle

Happiness is a simple everyday miracle, like water, and we are not aware of it.

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.

A man needs a little madness, or else ... he never dares cut the rope and be free.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

God turned his face the other way, and the earth was in darkness. An eclipse of God ... an eclipse of God

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

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

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

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.

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!

There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.

I felt this was my duty ... to draw the thick ancestral darkness out of my loins and transform it ... into light.

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

To succeed, you must first believe you can.

I knew that over and above the truth, there exists another duty which is much more important and much more human.

Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood.

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

The ultimate, most holy form of theory is action.

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.

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

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

So few in reality are the true necessities of man

But don't you believe in anything?I exclaimed in exasperation.

Love's feet are always pleased to step on ashes.

Good Lord, how can the rich bear to die?

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.

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

Religion is opium for the masses

Whoever is rich, and is a communist, is an idiot," he would say. " Whoever is poor, and is not a communist, is a bigger idiot.

If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I am a heart, and I love.

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

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.

Madness, Brother Masseo, is the salt which prevents good sense from rotting.

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

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

Zorba sees everything everyday as if for the first time.

Inexperience loves to preach.

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

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.

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

Our body is a ship that sails on deep blue waters. What is our goal? To be shipwrecked!

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

Oh, yes. Wife. Children. Home. Everything. The full catastrophe.

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

It's all because of doing things by halves and saying things by halves, being good by halves, that the world is in the mess it's in today.

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

Man cannot sprout wings unless he has first reached the brink of the abyss!

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

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

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

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?

O brain, be flowers that nightingales may come to sing!

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

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

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

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

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning.

At such times [drunk] all the doors of a woman's being are opened. The sentinels relax and a kind word is as powerful as gold or love.

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

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?

One of man's greatest obligations is anger.

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

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

It's possible to save oneself from Satan, Father Francis, but from men - never!

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

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