402 Quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

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. The more the intelligence unveils and violates the secrets of Nature, the more the danger increases and the heart shrinks.

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.

I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.

My principle anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

I said to the almond tree, 'Friend, speak to me of God,' and the almond tree blossomed.

By believing passionately in that which doesn't exist, you create it and that which has not been sufficiently desired is what we call the non existent.

Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.

All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.