402 Quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis

Was this man the Messiah whom God had promised him or wasn’t he? All the miracles he performed could also be performed by Satan, who could even resurrect the dead. The miracles therefore did not give the rabbi sufficient basis to pass judgment; nor did the prophecies. Satan was a sly and exceedingly powerful archangel. In order to deceive mankind he was capable of making his words and actions fit the holy prophecies to perfection.

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

But how can anyone put a bridle on man’s vanity and arrogance? But how can Purity walk the earth without covering her feet with mud?

Because what God wants, that, and only that, is also what we want – but we don’t know it. God comes and awakens our souls, revealing to them their real, though unknown, desire. This is the secret, Brother Leo. To do the will of God means to do my own most deeply hidden will.

The longer I live, the more I rebel. I’m not going to give in; I want to conquer the world!

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!

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.

Who knows, perhaps God is simply the search for God.

And I am glad, because although no one else in the world remembers him now, he will live inside me as long as I live. We shall die together. This grandfather was the first to make me wish not to die – so that the dead within me should not die. Since then, many departed dead ones have sunk, not into the grave, but into my memory, and I know now that as long as I live they shall live too.