Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

Joy! Joy! I did not know that all this world is so much part of me, that we are all one army, that windflowers and stars struggle to right and left of me and do not know me; but I turn to them and hail them. The Universe is warm, beloved, familiar, and it smells like my own body. It is Love and War both, a raging restlessness, persistence and uncertainty. Uncertainty and terror. In a violent flash of lightning I discern on the highest peak of power the final, the most fearful pair embracing: Terror and Silence. And between them, a Flame.

"Να πεθαίνεις κάθε μέρα. Να γεννιέσαι κάθε μέρα. Ν' αρνιέσαι ό, τι έχεις κάθε μέρα. Η ανώτατη αρετή δεν είναι να' σαι ελεύτερος, παρά να μάχεσαι για ελευτερία.
Μην καταδέχεσαι να ρωτάς: "Θα νικήσουμε; Θα νικηθούμε;" Πολέμα!"

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

Gather together in your heart all terrors, recompose all details. Salvation is a circle; close it!

إذا أخذت عدسة مكبرة لتنظر إلى الماء الذي تشربه فسترى ان الماء مليء بالديدان , الصغيرة جداً , التي لا ترى بالعين المجردة . سترى الديدان ولن تشرب . لن تشرب وستفطس من العطش . حطم العدسة أيها الرئيس , حطمها حتى تختفي الديدان الصغيرة فوراً فتستطيع أن تشرب وترتوي !

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

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.

إنّ الحسابات الطيبة تخلق الأصدقاء الطيبين

I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

there are three kinds of men: those who make it their aim, as they say, to live their lives, eat, drink, make love, grow rich, and famous; then come those who make it their aim not to live their own lives but to concern themselves with the lives of all men – they feel that all men are one and they try to enlighten them, to love them as much as they can and do good to them; finally there are those who aim at living the life of the entire universe – everything, men, animals, trees, stars, we are all one, we are all one substance involved in the same terrible struggle. What struggle?…Turning matter into spirit.

We, who are dying, are doing better, than they, who will live. For Crete doesn't need householders, she needs madmen like us. These madmen make Crete immortal.

"أسير على حافة الهاوية و أرتجف. هناك صوتان في داخلي يتهدجان.
يقول العقل: "لماذا نتوه بحثا عن المستحيل؟ يجب أن نعترف بحدود الانسان داخل السور المقدس للحواس الخمس".
لكن صوتا آخر بداخلي و لنسمه الحاسة السادسة أو لنسمه القلب يقف معترضا و يصيح:
"لا، لا، لاتعترف أبدا بحدود الانسان! عليك أن تحطم الحدود! ان تنكر ما تراه عيناك! أن تموت و أنت تردد لا يوجد موت".
.....
.......
........
أتابع العرض بمتعة و غرابة تفوق الوصف و لكنني لا أملك بساطة القروي لكي أصل الي يقين و أصعد على المسرح مشاركا في الكوميديا الدامية.
أنا الحاوي صانع المعجزات الذي يجلس ساكنا عند تقاطع طرق الحواس، يرى العالم يولد و يغيب، يرى الجوع تتحرك و تصيح في دروب اللا جدوى المتعددة الألوان."

What first truly stirred my soul was not fear or pain, nor was it pleasure or games; it was the yearning for freedom. I had to gain freedom - but from what, from whom? Little by little, in the course of time, I mounted freedom's rough unaccommodating ascent. To gain freedom first of all from the Turk, that was the initial step; after that, later, this new struggle began: to gain freedom from the inner Turk - from ignorance, malice and envy, from fear and laziness, from dazzling false ideas; and finally from idols, all of them, even the most revered and beloved.

It is as though we had buried Someone we thought dead, and now hear him calling in the night: Help me! Heaving and panting, he raises the gravestone of our soul and body higher and still higher, breathing more freely at every moment. Every word, every deed, every thought is the heavy gravestone he is forever trying to lift. And my own body and all the visible world, all heaven and earth, are the gravestone which God is struggling to heave upward.