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My principle anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

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
Battle
Onward
Youth
Incessant
Source
Sorrows
Joy
Joys
Principles
Anguish
Spirit
Principle
Flesh
Sorrow
Merciless

More quotes by 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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I've stopped thinking all the time of what happened yesterday. And stopped asking what's going to happen tomorrow. What's happening today, this minute, is what I care about.
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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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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Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Die every day. Be reborn again every day.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Man is able, and has the duty, to reach the furthest point on the road he has chosen. Only by means of hope can we attain what is beyond hope.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Beauty always had a purpose: to be of service to life.
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
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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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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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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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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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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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I 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 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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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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You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.
Nikos Kazantzakis