How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever itself from its body the world: from mountains, seas, cities, people. The soul is an oct… - Nikos Kazantzakis

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Engraved portrait of Nikos Kazantzakis, facing left

How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever itself from its body the world: from mountains, seas, cities, people. The soul is an octopus and these are its tentacles. … No force anywhere on earth is as imperialistic as the human soul. It occupies and is occupied in turn, but it always considers its empire too narrow. Suffocating, it desires to conquer the world in order to breathe freely.

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About Nikos Kazantzakis

Nikos Kazantzakis (18 February 1883 – 26 October 1957) was a Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Μουσείο N. Καζαντζάκη / Kazantzakis Museum (CC BY)

Also Known As

Native Name: Νίκος Καζαντζάκης

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Additional quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

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. Out of the transient encounter of contrary forces which constitute your existence, strive to create whatever immortal thing a mortal may create in this world — a Cry. And this Cry, abandoning to the earth the body which gave it birth, proceeds and labors eternally.

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