Tom > Tom's Quotes

“I was happy, I knew that. While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it do we suddenly realize - sometimes with astonishment - how happy we had been.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’

Which of us was right, boss?”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“A man needs a little madness, or else... he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“Reach what you cannot”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
― Oscar Wilde

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”
― Aristotle

“The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.”
― Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita