Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek Novelist, Statesman)

Níkos Kazantzákis, (1883–1957) was a Greek novelist, journalist, philosopher, and diplomat. Considered the foremost figure in modern Greek literature, his work is marked by his search for God and immortality.

Born in Iráklion, on the island of Crete in the Ottoman Empire, now Hērákleion, Kazantzakis studied law at the University of Athens and philosophy under Henri Bergson at the University of Paris. He then traveled widely in Spain, England, Russia, Egypt, Palestine, and Japan, settling before World War II on the Saronic island of Aegina. In 1919, he began his long career in public service, working in the Greek Ministry of Public Welfare. He was responsible for the rescue of about 150,000 Greeks from a war in the western Soviet Union. He also served at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris 1947–48. He then moved to Antibes, France.

Kazantzakis’s prolific output includes essays, plays, poetry, philosophic essays, novels, travel books, and translations into modern Greek. His massive epic poem Odíssa (1938; Odyssey) is a 33,333-line sequel to the Homeric epic that expresses the full range of Kazantzákis’s philosophy. The Last Temptation of Christ (1951; adapted into film by Martin Scorsese, 1988) explores the humanity revealed in the ministry of Jesus.

Kazantzákis is perhaps best known for his widely translated novels. They include Víos kai politía tou Aléxi Zormpá (1946; Zorba the Greek; film 1964,) the story of the friendship that develops between the uneducated but irrepressible Zorba and a visiting philosopher. O Kapetán Mikhális (1950; Freedom or Death) is a portrayal of Cretan Greeks’ struggle against their Ottoman overlords in the 19th century. His autobiographical novel Anaforá stón Gréko (1961; Report to Greco) was published posthumously.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Nikos Kazantzakis

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

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Topics: Belief

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Topics: Realism

I said to the almond tree, “Friend, speak to me of God,” and the almond tree blossomed.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Topics: Power

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

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Topics: Expectation

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea… . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Topics: Wine

I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis

What a strange machine man is!
You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes,
and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
Nikos Kazantzakis

Nietzsche taught me to distrust every optimistic theory. I knew that [the human] heart has constant need of consolation, a need to which that super-shrewd sophist the mind is constantly ready to minister. I began to feel that every religion which promises to fulfill human desires is simply a refuge for the timid, and unworthy of a true man. … We ought, therefore, to choose the most hopeless of world views, and if by chance we are deceiving ourselves and hope does exist, so much the better. At all events, in this way man’s soul will not be humiliated, and neither God nor the devil will ever be able to ridicule it by saying that it became intoxicated like a hashish-smoker and fashioned an imaginary paradise out of naivete and cowardice—in order to cover the abyss. The faith most devoid of hope seemed to me not the truest, perhaps, but surely the most valorous. I considered the metaphysical hope alluring bait which true men do not condescend to nibble. I wanted whatever was most difficult, in other words most worthy of man, of the man who does not whine, entreat, or go about begging.
Nikos Kazantzakis

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