Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

Author Image

Nikos Kazantzakis

Profession : Writer

Birth : February 18, 1883

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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.

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

Life is a crusade in the service of God. Whether we wished to or not, we set out as crusaders to free - not the Holy Sepulcher - but that God buried in matter and in our souls.

Nikos Kazantzakis

May God forgive me, but the letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly. They are sly, shameless demons - and dangerous! You open the inkwell, release them; they run off - and how will you ever get control of them again!

Nikos Kazantzakis

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!

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to unfasten your belt and look for a fight.

Nikos Kazantzakis

A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends. But among responsible men, men who keep their eyes riveted day and night upon the Supreme Duty, the conflict between flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.

Nikos Kazantzakis

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.

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

The struggle between God and man breaks out in everyone, together with the longing for reconciliation... God does not love weak souls and flabby flesh. The spirit desires to wrestle with flesh which is strong and full of resistance. It is a carnivorous bird which is incessantly hungry; it eats flesh and, by assimilating it, makes it disappear.

Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Nikos Kazantzakis

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.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Nothing is nearer to us than heaven. The earth is beneath our feet, and we tread upon it, but heaven is within us.

Nikos Kazantzakis