Happy the youth who believes that his duty is to remake the world and bring it more in accord with virtue and justice, more in accord with his own heart. Woe to whoever commences his life without lunacy.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISHappy the youth who believes that his duty is to remake the world and bring it more in accord with virtue and justice, more in accord with his own heart. Woe to whoever commences his life without lunacy.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISI possess no weapon but love. With that I have come to do battle. Help me!
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISMy entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISDiscipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISHow could I, who loved life so intensely, have let myself be entangled for so long in that balderdash of books and paper blackened with ink!
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISThe 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 KAZANTZAKISLions and Lambs, love and force, light and fire, good and evil: all things climb the same mountain, the mountain of God.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISTrue teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISI know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free .
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISTo succeed, you must first believe you can.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISBy believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISThe ultimate, most holy form of theory is action.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISFree yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model the longer the longer the tether of our slavery?
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISFreedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind’s supreme model.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISWhat a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKISBe always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, smash it! The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS