Nikos Kazantzakis: Trending quotes

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Nikos Kazantzakis: 444 quotes76 likes

“To SEE and accept the boundaries of the human mind without vain rebellion, and in these severe limitations to work ceaselessly without protest — this is where man's first duty lies.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“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

"Odyssey of Faith" in TIME magazine (6 June 1960) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,874166,00.html

“The centuries are thick, dark waves that rise and fall, steeped in blood. Every moment is a gaping abyss.
Gaze on the dark sea without staggering, confront the abyss every moment without illusion or impudence or fear. … But this is not enough; take a further step: battle to give meaning to the confused struggles of man.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“We do not only free God by battling and subduing the visible world about us; we also create God.
"Open your eyes," God shouts; "I want to see! Prick up your ears, I want to hear! March in the front ranks: you are my head!"”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“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!"”

Nikos Kazantzakis

Orpheus' song, Book III, line 178
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)

“High up where the poor sat, the people quaked with fear:
they saw the soul stretched on the ground, a votive beast
beaten by the conflicting powers of light and dark,
and their minds shook, nor knew now what great god to choose,
for comfort's road dropped to the right, the rough ascent
rose to the left, and both roads seemed to lead to God,
while at the crossroads stood the human heart, and swayed.”

Nikos Kazantzakis

Book VI, line 242
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)

“How can anyone see the only way the world can be saved and not be forced to weep?”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

The Last Temptation of Christ (1951)

“Profound and incommensurable is the worth of this flowing world: God clings to it and ascends, God feeds upon it and increases.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“The ultimate most holy form of theory is action.
Not to look on passively while the spark leaps from generation to generation, but to leap and to burn with it!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“Behind the stream of my mind and body, behind the stream of my race and all mankind, behind the stream of plants and animals, I watch with trembling the Invisible, treading on all visible things and ascending.
Behind his heavy and blood-splattered feet I hear all living things being trampled on and crushed.
His face is without laughter, dark and silent, beyond joy and sorrow, beyond hope.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“Outside the wind of Jehovah still beat on the door, trying to enter. There was no other sound. Not a jackal on the earth, nor a crow in the air. Every living thing cowered in fear, waiting for the Lord's anger to pass.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

Source: The Last Temptation of Christ (1951), Ch. 10

“The Cry within me is a call to arms. It shouts: "I, the Cry, am the Lord your God! I am not an asylum. I am not hope and a home. I am not the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. I am your General!
"You are not my slave, nor a plaything in my hands. You are not my friend, you are not my child. You are my comrade-in-arms!
"Hold courageously the passes which I entrusted to you; do not betray them. You are in duty bound, and you may act heroically by remaining at your own battle station.
"Love danger. What is most difficult? That is what I want! Which road should you take? The most craggy ascent! It is the one I also take: follow me!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“It is as though we had buried Someone we thought dead, and now hear him calling in the night: Help me! Heaving and panting, he raises the gravestone of our soul and body higher and still higher, breathing more freely at every moment.
Every word, every deed, every thought is the heavy gravestone he is forever trying to lift. And my own body and all the visible world, all heaven and earth, are the gravestone which God is struggling to heave upward.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“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 book Report to Greco

"My Friend Poet. Mount Athos.", Ch. 19, p. 215
Report to Greco (1965)

“How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever itself from its body the world: from mountains, seas, cities, people. The soul is an octopus and these are its tentacles. … No force anywhere on earth is as imperialistic as the human soul. It occupies and is occupied in turn, but it always considers its empire too narrow. Suffocating, it desires to conquer the world in order to breathe freely.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

"My Friend The Poet. Mount Athos.", Ch. 19, p. 188
Report to Greco (1965)

“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

Odysseus, Book VIII, line 770
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)

“Within profound Silence, erect, fearless, in pain and in play, ascending ceaselessly from peak to peak, knowing that the height has no ending, sing this proud and magical incantation as you hang over the Abyss:
I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, DEFENDER OF THE BORDERS, OF DOUBLE DESCENT, MILITANT, SUFFERING, OF MIGHTY BUT NOT OF OMNIPOTENT POWERS, A WARRIOR AT THE FARTHEST FRONTIERS, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF ALL THE LUMINOUS POWERS, THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE.
I BELIEVE IN THE INNUMERABLE, THE EPHEMERAL MASKS WHICH GOD HAS ASSUMED THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES, AND BEHIND HIS CEASELESS FLUX I DISCERN AN INDESTRUCTIBLE UNITY.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“My God and I are horsemen galloping in the burning sun or under drizzling rain. Pale, starving, but unsubdued, we ride and converse.
"Leader!" I cry. He turns his face toward me, and I shudder to confront his anguish.
Our love for each other is rough and ready, we sit at the same table, we drink the same wine in this low tavern of life.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“Who holds a sword is tempted, who has youth must play,
he who does not fear death on earth does not fear God.”

Nikos Kazantzakis

Odysseus, Book VIII, line 560
The Odyssey : A Modern Sequel (1938)