Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

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

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!"

With the passage of days in this godly isolation [desert], my heart grew calm. It seemed to fill with answers. I did not ask questions any more; I was certain. Everything - where we came from, where we are going, what our purpose is on earth - struck me as extremely sure and simple in this God-trodden isolation. Little by little my blood took on the godly rhythm. Matins, Divine Liturgy, vespers, psalmodies, the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, the constellations suspended like chandeliers each night over the monastery: all came and went, came and went in obedience to eternal laws, and drew the blood of man into the same placid rhythm. I saw the world as a tree, a gigantic poplar, and myself as a green leaf clinging to a branch with my slender stalk. When God's wind blew, I hopped and danced, together with the entire tree.

so few in reality are the true necessities of man

الفكرة هي كل شيء ، أَعندكَ إِيمان ؟ إِذن فإن قطعة من باب قديم تصبح رفاتا مقدسا . ليس لديك إيمان ؟ إن الصليب المقدس كله يصبح بابا قديما

My life had got on the wrong track, and my contact with men had become now a mere soliloquy. I had fallen so low that, if I had had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, I should have chosen the book.

The moment is ripe: leave the heart and the mind behind you, go forward, take the third step. Free yourself from the simple complacency of the mind that thinks to put all things in order and hopes to subdue phenomena. Free yourself from the terror of the heart that seeks and hopes to find the essence of things. Conquer the last, the greatest temptation of all: Hope. This is the third duty.

إلهي ليس كلّي القوة، إنه يكافح ويواجه الخطر في كلّ لحظة، يرتجف ويترنّح عبر المخلوقات كلّها ويصرخ، يتعرض للهزيمة بلا انقطاع، ثمّ ينهض ممتلئًا بالدم والتراب ليبدأ كفاحه من جديد.

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

إن الأحزان كلها أيها الرئيس ، تشطر قلبي إلى قطعتين .
لكنه هذا المليء بالندوب ، المثخن بالجراح ، سرعان ما يلتصق على نفسه ، ولا يعود للجرح وجود .
إنني مليء بالجراح التي تحولت إلى مجرد ندوب ولهذا فإنني أستطيع أن أتحمل الضربات .

What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The 'I' and the 'you' vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved.

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.

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

Αν δεν ξεχειλίσει η καρδιά του ανθρώπου από αγάπη ή από θυμό, τίποτα δεν μπορεί να γίνει στον κόσμο...

To cleave that sea 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.