402 Quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

Whoever is rich, and is a communist, is an idiot,” he would say. ” Whoever is poor, and is not a communist, is a bigger idiot.

When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When, in my rags – without desires – shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I – free, fearless, and blissful – retire to the forest? When? When, oh when?

It’s possible to save oneself from Satan, Father Francis, but from men – never!

It’s all because of doing things by halves and saying things by halves, being good by halves, that the world is in the mess it’s in today.

Zorba sees everything everyday as if for the first time.

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

Free your self from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But isn’t that, too, a form of slavery?

God replies every time we question him, but our flesh is bemired and almost deaf: we do not hear.

She disappeared. Since then I had never thought anymore of her. Nevertheless, she must have continued to live deep down in my heart, and today, on this empty coast, she reappeared, pale and plaintive, from the depths of my being.