My soul comes from better worlds and I have an incurable homesickness of the stars. — Nikos Kazantzakis

What a miracle life is and how alike are all souls when they send their roots down deep and meet and are one! — Nikos Kazantzakis

Be sure to live up to your reputation for honesty and goodness, because many souls who believe you to be honest and good have placed themselves in your hands. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Life is a crusade in the service of God. Whether we wished to or not, we set out as crusaders to free–not the Holy Sepulcher–but that God buried in matter and in our souls. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The canary is like a man’s soul. It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh. Its perceptions are still coarse and brutish. It can divine nothing clearly, nothing with certainty. — Nikos Kazantzakis

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I loved my body and did not want it to perish; I loved my soul and did not want it to decay. I have fought to reconcile these two primordial forces. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Three kinds of souls, three prayers: 1) I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot. 2) Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break. 3) Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break. — Nikos Kazantzakis

If the soul within us does not change, Judas, the world outside us will never change. The enemy is within, the Romans are within, salvation starts from within! — Nikos Kazantzakis

Life’s true face is the skull. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. inscription on Kazantakis’s tomb in Heraklion, Greece — Nikos Kazantzakis

Let your youth have free reign, it won’t come again, so be bold and no repenting. — Nikos Kazantzakis

When you’ve made up your mind, no use lagging behind, go ahead and no relenting, Let your youth have free reign, it won’t come again, so be bold and no repenting. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free . — Nikos Kazantzakis

You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else–he never dares cut the rope and be free. — Nikos Kazantzakis

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Happiness is a simple everyday miracle, like water, and we are not aware of it. — Nikos Kazantzakis

While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize–sometimes with astonishment–how happy we had been. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Confucius says: ‘Many seek happiness higher than man; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man.’ That is true. So there must be a happiness to suit every man’s stature. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Everything in this world has a hidden meaning. — Nikos Kazantzakis

But then I was young, and to be young means to undertake to demolish the world and to have the gall to wish to erect a new and better one in its place. — Nikos Kazantzakis

This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything–as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it. — Nikos Kazantzakis

As long as there are flowers and children and birds in the world, have no fears: everything will be fine. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Yes, there is weeping, even in heaven, but it is for those who are still crawling on the earth. — Nikos Kazantzakis

There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Only one woman exists in this world, one woman with countless faces. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite. — Nikos Kazantzakis

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

If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I said only one word, brought only one message: Love. Love–nothing else. — Nikos Kazantzakis

I possess no weapon but love. With that I have come to do battle. Help me! — Nikos Kazantzakis

If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I am a heart, and I love. — Nikos Kazantzakis

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

I surrender myself to everything. I love, I feel pain, I struggle. The world seems to me wider than the mind, my heart a dark and almighty mystery. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Lions and Lambs, love and force, light and fire, good and evil: all things climb the same mountain, the mountain of God. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Let people be, boss; don’t open their eyes. And supposing you did, what’d they see? Their misery! Leave their eyes closed, boss, and let them go on dreaming! — Nikos Kazantzakis

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

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. — Nikos Kazantzakis