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

More quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

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The more devils we have within us, the more chance we have to form angels.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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
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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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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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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
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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
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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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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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You gave me your curse, holy Fathers. I give you a blessing: May you be as moral and religious as I am.
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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Only after I've seen the visible can I imagine what the invisible is.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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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
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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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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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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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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
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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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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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I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.
Nikos Kazantzakis