Happiness is a simple everyday miracle, like water, and we are not aware of it.
Interpretation
Happiness is a fundamental aspect of life that is often overlooked despite its simplicity and abundance.
In this quote, Nikos Kazantzakis reflects on the often unrecognized presence of happiness in our daily lives, likening it to waterβan essential and miraculous element that we take for granted. He suggests that true happiness is simple and readily available, yet many fail to acknowledge its existence, urging us to be more aware and appreciative of the joy found in everyday moments.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech about finding joy in everyday life.
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.
Mankind . . . possesses two supreme blessings. First of these is the goddess Demeter, or Earth whichever name you choose to call her by. It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain. But after her there came the son of Semele, who matched her present by inventing liquid wine as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift, suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles of the day. There is no other medicine for misery.
I don't look my best when I wake up! But I do feel beautiful when I'm tired and happy and I've had a good laugh and a glass of champagne.
Every December, I host a tree-trimming party. I serve chili with cornbread and lots of good wine. It's a wonderful party, and it shows how much adults like to play.
You might not make it to the top, but if you are doing what you love, there is much more happiness there than being rich or famous.
But the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.
They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods
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