Nikos Kazantzakis quotes:

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

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.

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

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.

You know all about love, but that is not enough. You must also learn that hate comes from God as well, that it too is in the Lord's service. And in times like these, with the world fallen to the state it has, hate serves God more than love.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

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!" - The Narrator."

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

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

There's a devil inside me which cries, "You're not the son of the Carpenter, you're the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the Son of man whom Daniel prophesied." And still more: "The Son of God! And still more: God!

I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.

To succeed, you must first believe you can.

Everything in the world has a hidden meaning. . . . Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics. When you see them you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later that you understand.

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality," says one of my favorite Byzantine mystics. I did this when a child; I do it now as well in the most creative moments of my life.

Inexperience loves to preach.

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning.

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

I said to the almond tree, 'Friend, speak to me of God,' and the almond tree blossomed.

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

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.

Today, any action anywhere on earth has an immediate repercussion on all five continents. News of a victory of the Eastern armies in Morocco or Shanghai travels instantly, thanks to modern means of communication, to all Eastern peoples and fills them with enthusiasm and faith. This phenomenon is, of course, unprecedented in the history of man.

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

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!

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness.

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

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.

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!

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.

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."

In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.

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.

Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my travels and my dreams. Very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggles.

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?

The masses do not see the Sirens. They do not hear songs in the air. Blind, deaf, stooping, they pull at their oars in the hold of the earth. But the more select, the captains, harken to a Siren within them...and royally squander their lives with her.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free

How ought we to love God, Father?" he asked in a whisper."By loving men, my son""And how ought we to love men?" "By trying to guide them along the right path""And what is the right path?""The one that rises"- Nikos Kazanzakis, Christ Recrucified

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.

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create theirown.

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.

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

Once more I realized to what an extent earthly happiness is made to the measure of man. It is not a rare bird which we must pursue at one moment in heaven, at the next in our minds. Happiness is a domestic bird found in our own courtyards.

What is love?It's not empathy, nor kindness.Empathy takes two, the one who hurts and the one who empathizes.Kindness takes two, the one who gives and the one who takes.But love takes just one.The two get together into one.They don't separate.The "I" and the "you" disappear.I LOVE MEANS I DISAPPEAR..

With the world in the state it is today, whoever is virtuous must be so to the point of sainthood, and even beyond; whoever is a sinner must be so to the point of bestiality and even beyond. Today the middle road is no more.

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

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

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?

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!

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.

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

The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

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

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

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

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 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.

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!

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 riverbed into which the stream of your descendants shall enter and flow.

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.

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?

By believing passionately in something that does not yet exist, we create it.

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.

Die every day. Be reborn again every day.

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

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

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

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 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.

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?

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.

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

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!

Good Lord, how can the rich bear to die?

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.

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

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.

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 ... to draw the thick ancestral darkness out of my loins and transform it ... into light.

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

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 .

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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 was ill before I fell ill.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.

Life's true face is the skull.

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

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!

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.

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.

May he be cursed on earth who gives his trust to virtue, that bankrupt crone who takes our life's pure gold and gives but bad receipts for payment in the lower world. Ah, passers-by that stroll, travelers that come and go, all that I had, I placed on virtue, and lost the game!

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.

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

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

No wide road leads to God.

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.'