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

More quotes by 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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The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.
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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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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Good Lord, how can the rich bear to die?
Nikos Kazantzakis
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In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!
Nikos Kazantzakis
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I loved my body and did not want it to perish I loved my soul and did not want it to decay. I have fought to reconcile these two primordial forces.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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
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The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Once more there sounded within me the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us.
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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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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Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.
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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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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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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Today, any action anywhere on earth has an immediate repercussion on all five continents. News of a victory of the Eastern armies in Morocco or Shanghai travels instantly, thanks to modern means of communication, to all Eastern peoples and fills them with enthusiasm and faith. This phenomenon is, of course, unprecedented in the history of man.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Everything in this world has a hidden meaning, I thought. Men, animals, trees, stars, they are all hieroglyphics woe to anyone who begins to decipher them and guess what they mean.... When you see them, you do not understand them. You think they are really men, animals, trees, stars. It is only years later, too late, that you understand.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Be always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, smash it! The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.
Nikos Kazantzakis