Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis

Thy designs are a bottomless pit. How can I descend into this pit to examine it? Thou lookest thousands of years into the future and then Thou judgest. What today seems an injustice to man's minute brain becomes, thousands of years hence, the mother of man's salvation. If what today we term injustice did not exist, perhaps true justice would never come to mankind.

It's possible to save oneself from Satan, Father Francis, but from men—never!

At such times [drunk] all the doors of a woman's being are opened. The sentinels relax and a kind word is as powerful as gold or love.

If they were to ask me what road leads to heaven, I would answer them: the most difficult!

You've got a devil inside you, as well, but you don't know his name yet, and, since you don't know that, you can't breathe. Baptise him, boss, and you'll feel better!

Religion is opium for the masses

This rebel would but toss his head, and men,slaves,horses, towers...all the accursed levels above him...would come tumbling down. God always works in this way. Deep in the foundations of wrong he buries the small despised cry of justice.

A crust of lard, habit, and cowardice envelops the soul; no matter what it craves from the depths of its prison, the lard, habit, and cowardice carry out something entirely different.

O brain, be flowers that nightingales may come to sing!

I am always filled with melancholy. It's as if I see everything black. Everything wounds me deeply.

At night the jackals came and ate their feet, and the next morning crows flew down and ate their eyes.

Zorba sees everything everyday as if for the first time.

What is love? It's not empathy, nor kindness. Empathy takes two, the one who hurts and the one who empathizes. Kindness takes two, the one who gives and the one who takes. But love takes just one. The two get together into one. They don't separate. The I and the you disappear. I LOVE MEANS I DISAPPEAR..

Sa fi jurat ca sufletul, e si el, un animal cu plamani si nari, ca are nevoie de mult oxigen si ca se inabusa in praf si printre prea numeroase rasuflari

Eso es la libertad. Tener una pasión, amontonar monedas de oro, y repentinamente dominar la pasión y arrojar el tesoro a todos los vientos. Liberarse de una pasión para someterse a otra, más noble. Pero, ¿no es ésta, también, una forma de esclavitud?

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.

La mia anima viene da mondi migliori ed ho un'inguaribile nostalgia delle stelle.

We sense happiness with difficulty while experiencing it. Only when it has passed and we look back do we suddenly comprehend, sometimes with astonishment, how happy we have been. I, however, on this Cretan shore, was experiencing happiness while being simultaneously aware of my happiness.

A prelungi desp?rÈ›irea de cei dragi este otrav? curat?; mai bine s? o tai dintr-o lovitur? de cuÈ›it È™i s? r?mâi iar??i singur de tot, în starea fireasc? a omului, singur?tatea.

S-ar putea, desigur, s? nu-i salv?m, ad?ug?. Dar m?car aÈ™a o s? ne salv?m pe noi, încercând s?-i salv?m pe alÈ›ii. Nu-i aÈ™a? Nu asta propov?duiai dumneata, dasc?le? " Singurul mod de a te salva pe tine însuÈ›i este s? lupÈ›i s?-i salvezi pe ceilalÈ›i..." la fapt?, aÈ™adar, dasc?l iscusit în predici... Aici s? te v?d!

I would fill my soul with flesh, my flesh with soul

There is only one essence, always the same. As yet, man has found no other means to elevate himself—none but the routing of matter and the submission of the individual to an end which transcends the individual, even though that end be chimerical. When the heart believes and loves, nothing chimerical exists; nothing exists but

Eu nada espero. Eu nada temo. Eu sou livre.

If you have faith, a splinter from an old door will become a holy relic. And if you have no faith the entire holy cross will become an old door.