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

More quotes by 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!
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Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.
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The canary is like a man's soul. It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings.
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No wide road leads to God.
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How simple and frugal a thing is happiness.
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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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All the political, social, and economic improvements, all the technical progress cannot have any regenerating significance, so long as our inner life remains as it is at present. The more the intelligence unveils and violates the secrets of Nature, the more the danger increases and the heart shrinks.
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My soul comes from better worlds and I have an incurable homesickness of the stars.
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Die every day. Be reborn again every day.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Yes, there is weeping, even in heaven, but it is for those who are still crawling on the earth.
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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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The ultimate, most holy form of theory is action.
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.
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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.
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Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break.
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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.
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We are not men, to have need of another, an eternal life we are women, and for us one moment with man we love is everlasting Paradise, one moment far from the man we love is everlasting hell. It is here on earth that we women love out eternity
Nikos Kazantzakis