How could I, who loved life so intensely, have let myself be entangled for so long in that balderdash of books and paper blackened with ink!
Interpretation
The quote reflects a struggle between the love for life and the distractions of written words.
In this quote, Nikos Kazantzakis expresses a profound conflict between his deep appreciation for the vibrancy of life and the time spent immersed in the trivialities of literature and mundane writings. It highlights how one can become ensnared by the written word, neglecting the richness of real-life experiences, suggesting that sometimes our intellectual pursuits can lead us away from fully engaging with the world around us.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about how reading can sometimes distract us from real-world experiences.
A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends. But among responsible men, men who keep their eyes riveted day and night upon the Supreme Duty, the conflict between flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.
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.
What happiness this is: to fly, skimming over the earth just as we do in our dreams! Life has become a dream. Can this be the meaning of paradise?
I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect. Night has fallen.
The dual substance of Christ - the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God. [...] has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. [...] My principle anguish and source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh. [...] And my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met.
I fight to embrace the entire circle of human activity to the full extent of my ability.
When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of society. I believe that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force.
If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different.
With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.
The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.
What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several.
A curious thing about Ugu the Shoemaker was that he didn't suspect in the least that he was wicked. He wanted to be powerful and great, and he hoped to make himself master of all the Land of Oz that he might compel everyone in that fairy country to obey him, His ambition blinded him to the rights of others, and he imagined anyone else would act just as he did if anyone else happened to be as clever as himself.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.