I do not care what face other ages and other people have given to the enormous, faceless essence. They have crammed it with human virtues, with rewar… - Nikos Kazantzakis

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I do not care what face other ages and other people have given to the enormous, faceless essence. They have crammed it with human virtues, with rewards and punishments, with certain ties. They have given a face to their hopes and fears, they have submitted their anarchy to a rhythm, they have found a higher justification by which to live and labor. They have fulfilled their duty. But today we have gone beyond these needs; we have shattered this particular mask of the Abyss; our God no longer fits under the old features. Our hearts have overbrimmed with new agonies, with new luster and silence. The mystery has grown savage, and God has grown greater. The dark powers ascend, for they have also grown greater, and the entire human island quakes. Let us stoop down to our hearts and confront the Abyss valiantly. Let us try to mold once more, with our flesh and blood, the new, contemporary face of God. For our God is not an abstract thought, a logical necessity, a high and harmonious structure made of deductions and speculations. He is not an immaculate, neutral, odorless, distilled product of our brains, neither male nor female. He is both man and woman, mortal and immortal, dung and spirit. He gives birth, fecundates, slaughters — death and eros in one — and then he begets and slays once more, dancing spaciously beyond the boundaries of a logic which cannot contain the antinomies.

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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

Also Known As

Native Name: Νίκος Καζαντζάκης
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Additional quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

God is imperiled. He is not almighty, that we may cross our hands, waiting for certain victory. He is not all-holy, that we may wait trustingly for him to pity and to save us. Within the province of our ephemeral flesh all of God is imperiled. He cannot be saved unless we save him with our own struggles; nor can we be saved unless he is saved. We are one. From the blind worm in the depths of the ocean to the endless arena of the Galaxy, only one person struggles and is imperiled: You. And within your small and earthen breast only one thing struggles and is imperiled: the Universe.

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هذه هي الحرية.ان تهوى شيئا ما وان تجمع قطعا من الذهب وفجأة تتغلب على هواك وتلقي كنزك في الهواء ان تتحرر من هوى لتخضع لهوى اكثر نبلا منه.
لكن أليس هذا شكلا آخر من العبودية؟ أن تكرس نفسك لفكرة، لعرقك، الله؟

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