Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes & Sayings

Fools, art is a heavy task, more heavy than gold crowns; it's far more difficult to match firm words than armies, they're disciplined troops, unconquered, to be placed in rhythm, the mind's most mighty foe, and not disperse in air. I'd give, believe me, a whole land for one good song, for I know well that only words, that words alone, like the high mountains, have no fear of age or death. — Nikos Kazantzakis

- I hope you don't mind my saying so, boss, but I don't think your brain is quite formed yet. How old are you?
- Thirty-five.
- Then it never will be. — Nikos Kazantzakis

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

No wide road leads to God. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Never in my life have I feared death as much as I feared that resurrection. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The major and almost only theme of all my work is the struggle of man with "God": the unyielding, inextinguishable struggle of the naked worm called "man" against the terrifying power and darkness of the forces within him and around him. — Nikos Kazantzakis

To cleave that sea [the Aegean] 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. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars round it, but instead if despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The ultimate, most holy form of theory is action. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The more he approached the people and perceived their anger-filled eyes and the dark, tortured fierceness of their expressions, the more his heart stirred, the more his bowels flooded with deep sympathy and love. These are the people, he reflected. They are all brothers, every one of them, but they do not know it - and that is why they suffer. If they knew it, what celebrations there would be, what hugging and kissing, what happiness! — Nikos Kazantzakis

Monarch of earth, I shall confess my secret craft: I've always fought to purify wild flame to light, and kindle whatever light I found to burst in flame. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Cursed be all those on land and sea who eat their fill, cursed be all those who starve yet raise no hand in protest, cursed be all the bread, the wine, the meat which day by day descends deep in the entrails of the exploited man and turns not into freedom's cry, the murderer's ruthless knife! — Nikos Kazantzakis

As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don't decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I sense that the thing I am seeking is higher than love and higher than the joy of life and higher than science and glory and higher even than starts. Don't keep my wings tied in Your embrace.
You are only a shadow and only a smile in the great journey of my soul. Your eyes are the two clear springs where my thoughts came to drink and rest for a moment. And between Your breasts hides the soft pillow where I slept for a moment in order to waken again. Don't hold me bound. The enigma is not hidden in Your Lions nor in Your enormous eyes. And Your arms are small and weak and do not embrace my entire soul. There is a magnet above the stars that pulls me. And my entire body shudders, magnetized by the Great Nostalgia and the Great Longing. Someone is pulling at me from the stars. Do not hold me bound. The thing I am seeking is higher than love and higher than the joy of life. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I didn't know. I was fully aware of what would be destroyed. I did not know what would be built out of the ruins. No one can know that with any degree of certainty, I thought. The world is tangible, solid, we live in it and are struggling with it every moment it exist. The world of the future is not yet born — Nikos Kazantzakis

Thus night with all her snares passed through the upper world and baited all heads sweetly, fed all foolish hopes, for night can bring to men all shrewish day denies, wrapped as a gift in the green leaves of opiate dream. — Nikos Kazantzakis

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. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I an not tired, but the night is coming. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I lived six months with her. Since that day - God be my witness! - 1 need fear nothing.
Nothing, I say. Nothing, except one thing: that the devil, or God, wipe out those six
months from my memory. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I realized that meals, too, are a spiritual service and that meat, bread, and wine are the raw materials from which spirit is formed. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I had taken up my quill to begin writing many times before now, but I always abandoned it quickly: each time I was overcome with fear. Yes, may God forgive me, but the letters of the alphabet frighten me terribly. They are sly, shameless demons - and dangerous! You open the inkwell, release them: they run off - and how will you ever get control of them again! They come to life, join, separate, ignore your commands, arrange themselves as they like on the paper - black, with tails and horns. You scream at them and implore them in vain: they do as they please. Prancing, pairing up shamelessly before you, they deceitfully expose what you did not wish to reveal, and they refuse to give voice to what is struggling, deep within your bowels, to come forth and speak to mankind. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive. — Nikos Kazantzakis

As far as I can see, your lordship's never been hungry, never killed, never stolen. what ever can you know of the world? You've got an innocent's brain and you skin's never felt the sun, — Nikos Kazantzakis

Leave nothing for death but a burned-out castle — Nikos Kazantzakis

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Everything in the world has a hidden meaning ... Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics. When you see them you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later that you understand. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Only one woman exists in this world, one woman with countless faces. — Nikos Kazantzakis

God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness. — Nikos Kazantzakis

My principal anguish, and the wellspring of all my joys and sorrows, has been the incessant merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh. — Nikos Kazantzakis

But then I was young, and to be young means to undertake to demolish the world and to have the gall to wish to erect a new and better one in its place. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Thy designs are a bottomless pit. How can I descend into this pit to examine it? Thou lookest thousands of years into the future and then Thou judgest. What today seems an injustice to man's minute brain becomes, thousands of years hence, the mother of man's salvation. If what today we term injustice did not exist, perhaps true justice would never come to mankind. — Nikos Kazantzakis

As you walk, you cut open and create that riverbed into which the stream of your descendants shall enter and flow. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I believe I'm a caterpillar buried deep down under the ground. The entire earth is above me, crushing me and I begin to bore through the soil, making a passage to the surface so that I can penetrate the crust and issue into the light. It's hard work boring through the entire earth, but I'm able to be patient because I have a strong premonition that as soon as I do issue into the light I shall become a butterfly. — Nikos Kazantzakis

True teachers use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. — Nikos Kazantzakis

When I encounter a sunrise, a painting, a woman, or an idea that makes my heart bound like a young calf, then I know I am standing in front of happiness. — Nikos Kazantzakis

You gave me your curse, holy Fathers. I give you a blessing: May you be as moral and religious as I am. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every obstacle in his journey became a milestone, an occasion for further triumph. We have a model in front of us now, a model who blazes our trail and gives us strength. — Nikos Kazantzakis

This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything- as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings. — Nikos Kazantzakis

A prophet is the one who, when everyone else despairs, hopes. And when everyone else hopes, he despairs. You'll ask me why. It's because he has mastered the Great Secret: that the Wheel turns. — Nikos Kazantzakis

If only we know, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say. Maybe they call-call us-and we don't hear them. When will people's ears open, boss? When shall we have our eyes open to see? When shall we open our arms to embrace everything-stones, rain, flowers, and people? What do you think about that, boss? And what do your books have to say about that? — Nikos Kazantzakis

I'm going to make a jug, I'm going to make a plate, I'm going to make a lamp and the devil knows what more! That's what
you might call being a man: freedom!"
"Well?" I asked. "What about your finger?"
Oh, it got in my way in the wheel. It always got plumb in the middle of things and upset my plans.
So one day I seized a hatchet ... — Nikos Kazantzakis

Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. 'What, grandfather!' I exclaimed. 'Planting an almond tree?' And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: 'My son, I carry on as if I should never die.' I replied: 'And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.'

Which of us was right, boss? — Nikos Kazantzakis

Two equally steep and bold paths may lead to the same peak. To act as if death did not exist, or to act thinking every minute of death, is perhaps the same thing. — Nikos Kazantzakis

What is love?
It's not empathy, nor kindness.
Empathy takes two, the one who hurts and the one who empathizes.
Kindness takes two, the one who gives and the one who takes.
But love takes just one.
The two get together into one.
They don't separate.
The "I" and the "you" disappear.
I LOVE MEANS I DISAPPEAR.. — Nikos Kazantzakis

He who is invisible sees more clearly, hears more clearly, and is better able to read the thoughts of men. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I say one thing, you write another, and those who read you understand still something else! I say: cross, death, kingdom of heaven, God ... and what do you understand? Each of you attaches his own suffering, interests and desires to each of these sacred words, and my words disappear, my soul is lost. I can't stand it any longer! — Nikos Kazantzakis

Happiness is a simple everyday miracle, like water, and we are not aware of it. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Go as far as you can. Go further than you can! — Nikos Kazantzakis

It doesn't matter whether or not you have a head, you must wear the right sort of hat — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. — Nikos Kazantzakis

There is no harsher means of punishment, than to answer malice with kindness. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Be sure to live up to your reputation for honesty and goodness, because many souls who believe you to be honest and good have placed themselves in your hands. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Oh, yes. Wife. Children. Home. Everything. The full catastrophe. — Nikos Kazantzakis

ADAM AND EVE, sitting in Paradise, chatting:
"If we could only open the gate and leave," says Eve.
"To go where, my dearest?"
"If we could only open the gate and leave!"
"Outside is sickness, pain, death!"
"If we could only open the gate and leave! — Nikos Kazantzakis

The Lord preserve us from sainthood — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every integral man has inside him, in his heart of hearts, a mystic center around which all else revolves. This mystic whirling lends unity to his thoughts and actions; it helps him find or invent the cosmic harmony. For some this center is love, for others kindness or beauty, others the thirst for knowledge or the longing for gold and power. They examine the relative value of all else and subordinate it to this central passion. — Nikos Kazantzakis

There is only one sin god will not forgive Boss, and that is to deny a woman who is in wanting ~ Zorba — Nikos Kazantzakis

You know all about love, but that is not enough. You must also learn that hate comes from God as well, that it too is in the Lord's service. And in times like these, with the world fallen to the state it has, hate serves God more than love. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Gradually I began to understand that it does not matter very much what problem, whether big or small, is tormenting us; the only thing that matters it that we be tormented, that we find a ground for being tormented. In other words, that we exercise our minds in order to keep certainty from turning us into idiots, that we fight to open every closed door we find in front of us. — Nikos Kazantzakis

To think things out properly and fairly, a fellow's got to be calm and old and toothless: When you're an old gaffer with no teeth, it's easy to say: 'Damn it, boys, you mustn't bite!' But, when you've got all thirty-two teeth ... — Nikos Kazantzakis

God, what is all this talk put out by the popes? Paradise is here, my good man. God, give me no other paradise! — Nikos Kazantzakis

I was ill before I fell ill. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Ah, if you could dance all that you've just said, then I'd understand. — Nikos Kazantzakis

All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see? — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time. — Nikos Kazantzakis

All the political, social, and economic improvements, all the technical progress cannot have any regenerating significance, so long as our inner life remains as it is at present. — Nikos Kazantzakis

They had no fear of death, and whoever has no fear of death - the centurion had often meditated on this here in the East - whoever has no fear of death is immortal. — Nikos Kazantzakis

There is only one essence, always the same. As yet, man has found no other means to elevate himself - none but the routing of matter and the submission of the individual to an end which transcends the individual, even though that end be chimerical. When the heart believes and loves, nothing chimerical exists; nothing exists but — Nikos Kazantzakis

I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed. — Nikos Kazantzakis

One of man's greatest obligations is anger. — Nikos Kazantzakis

There's a devil inside me which cries, "You're not the son of the Carpenter, you're the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the Son of man whom Daniel prophesied." And still more: "The Son of God! And still more: God! — Nikos Kazantzakis

The dissolute and unlawful king came: Herod! I saw him with my own eyes when he called me to Jericho to heal him. I took along my secret herbs - I knew all about such lore - and went. I went, and from that day on, I have not been able to eat meat, for I saw his putrescent flesh; I have not been able to drink wine, for I saw his blood filled with worms. I have retained his stench in my nostrils for over thirty years. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I've stopped thinking all the time of what happened yesterday. And stopped asking what's going to happen tomorrow. What's happening today, this minute, is what I care about. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Truly, everything in this world depended on time. Time ripened all. If you had time, you succeeded in working the human mud internally and turning it into spirit. Then you did not fear death. If you did not have time, you perished. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Good Lord, just think what poor old God must go through also," he said with a laugh. "He certainly got himself in hot water when he created the world. The fish screams, Don't blind me, Lord; don't let me enter the nets! The fisherman screams, Blind the fish, Lord; make him enter the nets! Which one is God supposed to listen to? Sometimes he listens to the fish, sometimes to the fisherman - and that's the way the world goes round! — Nikos Kazantzakis

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Zorba sighed. He lit a cigarette, took one or two puffs and then threw it away.
My country, you say? ... You believe all the rubbish your books tell you ... ? Well, I'm the one you should believe. So long as there are countries, man will stay like an animal, a ferocious animal ... But I am delivered from all that, God be praised! It's finished for me! What about you? — Nikos Kazantzakis

The great difference between us is this: you believe you have found salvation, and believing this, you are saved; I believe that salvation doesn't exist, and believing this, I am saved. — Nikos Kazantzakis

A woman's body is a dark and monstrous mystery; between her supple thighs a heavy whirlpool swirls, two rivers crash, and woe to him who slips and falls! — Nikos Kazantzakis

... Man's heart is a ditch full of blood. The loved ones who have died throw themselves down on the bank of this ditch to drink the blood and so come to life again; the dearer they are to you, the more of your blood they drink. - The Narrator. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Life's true face is the skull. — Nikos Kazantzakis

We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. — Nikos Kazantzakis

What do you have to fear? Nothing. Whom do you have to fear? No one. Why? Because whoever has joined forces with God obtains three great privileges: omnipotence without power, intoxication without wine, and life without death. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Do you think love is the way of God - love? Look here - " He stretched forth his bony, hairy hand and pointed to the Dead Sea, which stank like a rotting carcass. "Have you ever bent over to see the two whores, Sodom and Gomorrah, at her bottom? God became angry, hurled fire, stamped on the earth: dry land turned to sea and swallowed up Sodom and Gomorrah. That is God's way - follow — Nikos Kazantzakis

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. — Nikos Kazantzakis

What, then is our duty? It is to carefully distinguish the historic moment in which we live and to consciously assign our small energies to a specific battlefield. The more we are in phase with the current which leads the way, the more we aid man in his difficult, uncertain, danger-fraught ascent toward salvation. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Leave your books alone. Aren't you ashamed? Man is a wild beast, and wild beasts don't read. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood. — Nikos Kazantzakis

In order to mount to the Cross, the summit of sacrifice, and to God, the summit of immateriality, Christ passed through all the stages which the man who struggles passes through. — Nikos Kazantzakis

God hates a half-devil ten times more than an arch-devil! — Nikos Kazantzakis

Whoever is rich, and is a communist, is an idiot," he would say. " Whoever is poor, and is not a communist, is a bigger idiot. — Nikos Kazantzakis

At such times [drunk] all the doors of a woman's being are opened. The sentinels relax and a kind word is as powerful as gold or love. — Nikos Kazantzakis

By believing passionately in that which doesn't exist, you create it and that which has not been sufficiently desired is what we call the non existent - — Nikos Kazantzakis

I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. — Nikos Kazantzakis