Quote

This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.

Nikos Kazantzakis

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Nikos Kazantzakis
Age: 74 †
Born: 1883
Born: February 18
Died: 1957
Died: October 26
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Heraclion
Nicos Kazantzakes
Men
Become
Sea
Fairy
Love
Live
Realize
Final
Life
Need
Realizing
Accomplished
Like
Right
Land
Tales
Needs
Stars
Finals
Heart
Happiness
Miracle
Work
Left
Ambition
Tale
Every
True
Horse
Sudden

More quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

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I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Discipline is the highest of all virtues. Only so may strength and desire be counterbalanced and the endeavors of man bear fruit.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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My soul comes from better worlds and I have an incurable homesickness of the stars.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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The canary is like a man's soul. It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Whoever climbed the Lord's mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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
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Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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True 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 Kazantzakis
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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
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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
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God sends rain, but He also sends hoods and when the rain grows heavier, He sends a cave.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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
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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
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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
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Free 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 Kazantzakis
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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
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Reach what you cannot
Nikos Kazantzakis
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As long as there are flowers and children and birds in the world, have no fears: everything will be fine.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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