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Lord, bend me, or I shall rot. Lord do not bend me too much, for I shall break. Lord bend me too much, who cares if I break!

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
Break
Lord
Care
Much
Bend
Cares
Shall

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How does the light of a star set out and plunge into black eternity in its immortal course? The star dies, but the light never dies such also is the cry of freedom.
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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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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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Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time.
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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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Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.
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Cursed be all those on land and sea who eat their fill, cursed be all those who starve yet raise no hand in protest, cursed be all the bread, the wine, the meat which day by day descends deep in the entrails of the exploited man and turns not into freedom's cry, the murderer's ruthless knife!
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Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.
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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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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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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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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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Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.
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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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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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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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
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There's a devil inside me which cries, You're not the son of the Carpenter, you're the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the Son of man whom Daniel prophesied. And still more: The Son of God! And still more: God!
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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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