Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

Contend with the powers of nature, force them to the yoke of superior purpose. Free that spirit which struggles within them and longs to mingle with that spirit which struggles within you.

كلّ ماينبغي لكي تشعر بأن هذه هي السعادة، هو أن يكون لك قلب راض ونفس قانعة

"كل فكرة لها تأثير حقيقي، لها أيضاًِ وجود حقيقي. انها هنا. انها لاتجري في الهواء غير مرئية. ان لها جسداً حقيقياً: عينين، وفماً، وقدمين ومعدة. انها رجل أو امرأة، وهي تتبع الرجال أو النساء. لهذا فأن الانجيل يقول: "لقد تجسدت الكلمة.." ص ٢٠٩"

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!

This is the Supreme Duty of the man who struggles — to set out for the lofty peak which Christ, the first-born sone of salvation, attained. How can we begin? If we are to follow him we must have a profound knowledge of his conflict, we must relive his anguish: his victory over the blossoming snares of the earth, his sacrifice of the great and small joys of men and his ascent from sacrifice to sacrifice, exploit to exploit, to martyrdom's summit, the Cross.

The Cry within me is a call to arms. It shouts: "I, the Cry, am the Lord your God! I am not an asylum. I am not hope and a home. I am not the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. I am your General! "You are not my slave, nor a plaything in my hands. You are not my friend, you are not my child. You are my comrade-in-arms! "Hold courageously the passes which I entrusted to you; do not betray them. You are in duty bound, and you may act heroically by remaining at your own battle station. "Love danger. What is most difficult? That is what I want! Which road should you take? The most craggy ascent! It is the one I also take: follow me!

انني لا أؤمن بشيء ، ولا بأي شخص آخر ، بل بزوربا وحده . ليس لأن زوربا أفضل من الآخرين ليس ذلك مطلقا مطلقا ، انه بهيمة هو الآخر ، لكنني أؤمن بزوربا لأنه الوحيد الذي يقع تحت سلطتي ، الوحيد الذي أعرفه، و كل الآخرين انما هم أشباح . عندما أموت أنا ، فكل شيء يموت . إن كل العالم الزوربي سينهار دفعة واحدة.

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.

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.

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.

Your first duty, in completing your service to your race, is to feel within you all your ancestors. Your second duty is to throw light on their onrush and to continue their work. Your third duty is to pass on to your son the great mandate to surpass you.

This ultimate stage of our spiritual exercise is called Silence. Not because its contents are the ultimate inexpressible despair or the ultimate inexpressible joy and hope. Nor because it is the ultimate knowledge which does not condescend to speak, or the ultimate ignorance which cannot. Silence means: Every person, after completing his service in all labors, reaches finally the highest summit of endeavor, beyond every labor, where he no longer struggles or shouts, where he ripens fully in silence, indestructibly, eternally, with the entire Universe.

All this world, all this rich, endless flow of appearances is not a deception, a multicolored phantasmagoria of our mirroring mind. Nor is it absolute reality which lives and evolves freely, independent of our mind's power. It is not the resplendent robe which arrays the mystic body of God. Nor the obscurely translucent partition between man and mystery. All this world that we see, hear, and touch is that accessible to the human senses, a condensation of the two enormous powers of the Universe permeated with all of God.

أنا واثق بأنني جزء من الكون المرئي و اللا مرئي. نحن شيء واحد، القوى التي تعمل بداخلي و القوى الاخرى التي تدفعني لاعيش،و القوى التي تدفعني لأموت، هي بالتأكيد قواك أنت ايضا.
أنا لست جسدا معلقا لا جذور له في العالم، أنا تراب من ترابه و نفس من أنفاسه

لا اخاف وحدي و لا آمل وحدي و لا أًصيح وحدي، قطاع كبير وقوى هائلة من الكون تخاف و تأمل و تصيح معي

I put my body through its paces like a war horse; I keep it lean, sturdy, prepared. I harden it and I pity it. I have no other steed. I keep my brain wide awake, lucid, unmerciful. I unleash it to battle relentlessly so that, all light, it may devour the darkness of the flesh. I have no other workshop where I may transform darkness into light. I keep my heart flaming, courageous, restless. I feel in my heart all commotions and all contradictions, the joys and sorrows of life. But I struggle to subdue them to a rhythm superior to that of the mind, harsher than that of my heart — to the ascending rhythm of the Universe.