Source: Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1982), Ch. 8 : The Way of Peace
Context: Knowing that all things contrary to God's laws are transient, let us avoid despair and radiate hope for a warless world. Peace is possible, for thoughts have tremendous power.
A few really dedicated people can offset the ill effects of masses of out-of-harmony people, so we who work for peace must not falter. We must continue to pray for peace and to act for peace in whatever way we can, we must continue to speak for peace and to live the way of peace; to inspire others, we must continue to think of peace and to know that peace is possible. What we dwell upon we help to bring into manifestation. One little person, giving all of her time to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history.
“All hopes and despairs vanish in the voracious, funneling whirlwind of God.”
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: All hopes and despairs vanish in the voracious, funneling whirlwind of God. God laughs, wails, kills, sets us on fire, and then leaves us in the middle of the way, charred embers.
And I rejoice to feel between my temples, in the flicker of an eyelid, the beginning and the end of the world.
I condense into a lightning moment the seeding, sprouting, blossoming, fructifying, and the disappearance of every tree, animal, man, star, and god.
All Earth is a seed planted in the coils of my mind. Whatever struggles for numberless years to unfold and fructify in the dark womb of matter bursts in my head like a small and silent lightning flash.
Ah! let us gaze intently on this lightning flash, let us hold it for a moment, let us arrange it into human speech.
Let us transfix this momentary eternity which encloses everything, past and future, but without losing in the immobility of language any of its gigantic erotic whirling.
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Nikos Kazantzakis 222
Greek writer 1883–1957Related quotes
August, 1917
India's Rebirth
“It's exactly at these moments, when all hope has vanished, that prayer has dominion.”
Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.”
Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe.
Alternate translation: Hope not without despair, despair not without hope. (translated by Zachariah Rush).
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind, Line 12
“It's not the despair, Laura, I can stand the despair. It's the hope.”
Clockwise (1986), cited from Malcolm Page File on Frayn (London: Methuen, 1994) p. 65.
“2542. Hope is as cheap as Despair.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Despair exists only when there is hope.”
11th Public Talk, London, UK (25 May 1961)
1960s
“Prayer is a bridge from despair to hope.”
Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)