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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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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
Great
Point
Struggled
Mind
Death
Console
Life
Order
Stretch
Thought
Breaking
Give
Began
Able
Meaning
Might
Mankind
Giving
Create
Creak

More quotes by 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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As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters as long as they don't decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough.
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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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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It doesn't matter whether or not you have a head, you must wear the right sort of hat
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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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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Before me is the abyss. How can I leap across it? And if I do not leap, how shall I ever be able to reach God?
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 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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God sends rain, but He also sends hoods and when the rain grows heavier, He sends a cave.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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The landscape affects the human psyche - the soul, the body and the innermost contemplations - like music. Every time you feel nature deeper you resonate better with her, finding new elements of balance and freedom.
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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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
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God is action, complete with mistakes, fumblings, persistence, agony. God is not the power that has found eternal equilibrium, but the power that is forever breaking every equilibrium, forever searching for a higher one.
Nikos Kazantzakis
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Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time.
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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All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?
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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No! No! Never acknowledge the limitations of man. Smash all boundaries! Deny whatever your eyes see. Die every moment, but say: Death does not exist.'
Nikos Kazantzakis