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When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us but we are not destroyed.

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
Call
Destroy
Powerful
Tests
Wrong
Devil
Upon
Courage
Endurance
Others
Seem
Rush
Seems
Joy
Test
Soul
Goes
Destroyed
Everything
Enemy
Invisible

More quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

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I should learn to run, to wrestle, to swim, to ride horses, to row, to drive a car, to fire a rifle. I should fill my soul with flesh. I should fill my flesh with soul. In fact, I should reconcile at last within me the two internal antagonists.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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All my life I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, a new meaning to death, and to console mankind.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Inexperience loves to preach.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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All roads lead to the earth the abyss leads to God. Jump!
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.
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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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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If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.
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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The masses do not see the Sirens. They do not hear songs in the air. Blind, deaf, stooping, they pull at their oars in the hold of the earth. But the more select, the captains, harken to a Siren within them...and royally squander their lives with her.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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O Sun, great Oriental, my proud mind's golden cap, I love to wear you cocked askew, to play and burst in song throughout our lives, and so rejoice our hearts.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.
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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Death's dry bones glowed with light in the erotic dark but he woke not nor felt the two warm bodies merge the male worm then took heart and in his wife's ear whispered: With one sweet kiss, dear wife, we've conquered conquering Death!
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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You do miracles if you concentrate your mind on one thing and one thing only.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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
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May he be cursed on earth who gives his trust to virtue, that bankrupt crone who takes our life's pure gold and gives but bad receipts for payment in the lower world. Ah, passers-by that stroll, travelers that come and go, all that I had, I placed on virtue, and lost the game!
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