Report to Greco Quotes

“I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

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

“Man is able, and has the duty, to reach the furthest point on the road he has chosen. Only by means of hope can we attain what is beyond hope.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“I did not know what I was going to do with my life; before anything else I wanted to find an answer, my answer, to the timeless questions, and then after that I would decide what I would become. If I did not begin by discovering what was the grand purpose of life on earth, I said to myself, how would I be able to discover the purpose of my tiny ephemeral life? And if I did not give my life a purpose, how would I be able to engage in action? I was not interested in finding what life's purpose was objectively - this, I divined, was impossible and futile - but simply what purpose I, of my own free will, could give it in accord with my spiritual and intellectual needs. Whether or not this purpose was the true one did not, at that time, have any great significance for me. The important thing was that I should find (should create) a purpose congruent with my own self, and thus, by following it, reel out my particular desires and abilities to the furthest possible limit. For then at last I would be collaborating harmoniously with the totality of the universe.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“The sole way to save oneself is to save others. Or to struggle to save others -even that is sufficient.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Once more I realized to what an extent earthly happiness is made to the measure of man. It is not a rare bird which we must pursue at one moment in heaven, at the next in our minds. Happiness is a domestic bird found in our own courtyards.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Every integral man has inside him, in his heart of hearts, a mystic center around which all else revolves. This mystic whirling lends unity to his thoughts and actions; it helps him find or invent the cosmic harmony. For some this center is love, for others kindness or beauty, others the thirst for knowledge or the longing for gold and power. They examine the relative value of all else and subordinate it to this central passion.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“اصبر، تأمل، ثـق”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“كيف يمكن لأحد أن يكون سعيداً في هذا الجسد المسكين و في هذا الخليط من الدماء والعظام والدماغ واللحم والمخاط والمني والعرق والدموع والبراز؟ كيف يمكن لأحد أن يكون سعيداً في هذا الجسد المحكوم بالحسد والكراهية والكذب والخوف والألم والجوع والعطش والمرض والشيخوخة والموت؟ الأشياء كلها- النباتات والحشرات والوحوش والبشر- تتقدم نحو الفناء. انظر خلفك إلى أولئك الذين لم يعودوا موجودين وانظر أمامك إلى الذين لم يولدوا بعد.ينضج الناس مثل القمح ويتساقطون كالقمح وينبتون من جديد. المحيطات التي لا حدود لها تجف والجبال تمحى. يرتعش نجم القطب والآلهة تتلاشى.”
― نيكوس كازانتزاكيس, Report to Greco

“Happy the youth who believes that his duty is to remake the world and bring it more in accord with virtue and justice, more in accord with his own heart. Woe to whoever commences his life without lunacy.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“يارب ,, لا تنزل على الانسان كل ما يستطيع تحمله ”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Δεν έχουμε παρά μια μονάχα στιγμή στη διάθεσή μας. Ας κάνουμε τη στιγμή αυτή αιωνιότητα. Άλλη αθανασία δεν υπάρχει.”
― Νίκος Καζαντζάκης, Report to Greco

“What first truly stirred my soul was not fear or pain, nor was it pleasure or games; it was the yearning for freedom. I had to gain freedom - but from what, from whom? Little by little, in the course of time, I mounted freedom's rough unaccommodating ascent. To gain freedom first of all from the Turk, that was the initial step; after that, later, this new struggle began: to gain freedom from the inner Turk - from ignorance, malice and envy, from fear and laziness, from dazzling false ideas; and finally from idols, all of them, even the most revered and beloved.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“نحن الملامون إن لم يأخذ الواقع الشكل الذي نرغب فيه. كل ما لم نرغب فيه بالقوة الكافية هو الذي نسميه غير موجود. إرغب فيه، و ضمخه بدمك و عرقك و دموعك و سيتجسد. الواقع ليس أكثر من وهم خاضع لرغبتنا و معاناتنا”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Man hurries, God does not. That is why man's works are uncertain and maimed, while God's are flawless and sure. My eyes welling with tears, I vowed never to transgress this eternal law again. Like a tree I would be blasted by wind, struck by sun and rain, and would wait with confidence; the long-desired hour of flowering and fruit would come.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“أجمع أدواتي: النظر والشم واللمس والذوق والسمع والعقل. قد خيم الظلام وانتهى عمل النهار. أعود- كالخلد- إلى بيتي، الأرض. ليس لأني تعبت أو عجزت عن العمل، فأنا لم أتعب. لكن الشمس قد غربت.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“I an not tired, but the night is coming.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Beauty always had a purpose: to be of service to life.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“We are to blame if reality does not take the form we desire. Whatever we have not desired with sufficient strength, that we call nonexistent. Desire it, imbrue it with your blood, your sweat, your tears, and it will take on a body. Reality is nothing more than the chimera subjected to our desire and our suffering.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Oh, how crafty of religion, I cried out indignantly, to transplant rewards and punishments into a future life in order to comfort cowards and the enslaved and aggrieved, enabling them to bow their necks patiently before their masters, and to endure this earthly life without groaning (the only life of which we can be sure)!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Μαζεύω τα σύνεργά μου: Όραση, ακοή, γέψη, όσφρηση, αφή, μυαλό, βράδυασε πια, τελεύει το μεροκάματο, γυρίζω σαν τον τυφλοπόντικα σπίτι μου, στο χώμα. Όχι γιατί κουράστηκα να δουλεύω, δεν κουράστηκα, μα ο ήλιος βασίλεψε.”
― Νίκος Καζαντζάκης, Report to Greco

“كان القوس مشدوداً جداً حتى أنني كنت أسمع تمزق الحبل الممدود بين صدغيَّ في داخلي، لقد وصل إلى حد الانقطاع.
صدغان يرنان، والأعصاب في رقبتي تخفق، أحسست بقواي تتسرب من دماغي وحقوي ورسغي - وتتلاشى. ورحت أفكر مع نفسي، اذن فهكذا هو الموت- هادىء وشفوق، شبيه بدخولك إلى حمام دافىء وقطع شرايينك.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“الأصوات كلها يمكن أن تسمعها هنا في الصحراء، خاصة صوتان صعب الفصل بينهما.صوت الله وصوت الشيطان. فانتبه يا بني.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“Never in my life had I felt so tangibly and with such astonishment that hate, by passing successively through comprehension, mercy, and sympathy, can be transformed into love.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“There are three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers. One: I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me lest I rot. Two: Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break. Three: Overdraw me, and who cares if I break! “Choose!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

“The struggle between God and man breaks out in everyone, together with the longing for reconciliation. Most often this struggle is unconscious and short-lived. 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.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco