Contend with the powers of nature, force them to the…

Contend with the powers of nature, force them to the yoke of superior purpose. Free that spirit which struggles within them and longs to mingle with that spirit which struggles within you.

Sourced, The Saviors of God (1923)

Other Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

If you are a man of learning, fight in the skull, kill ideas and create new ones. God hides in every idea as in every cell of flesh. Smash the idea, set him free! Give him another, a more spacious idea in which to dwell. - View Quote Details on If you are a man of learning, fight in the…
How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever itself from its body the world: from mountains, seas, cities, people. The soul is an octopus and these are its tentacles…. No force anywhere on earth is as imperialistic as the human soul. It occupies and is occupied in turn, but it always considers its empire too narrow. Suffocating, it desires to conquer the world in order to breathe freely. - View Quote Details on How difficult, how extremely difficult for the soul to sever…
As long as our souls remain strong, that is all that matters; as long as they don’t decline. Because with the fall of certain souls in this world, the world itself will collapse. These are the pillars which support it. They are few, but enough. - View Quote Details on As long as our souls remain strong, that is all…
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. - View Quote Details on By believing passionately in something that still does not exist,…
It is as though we had buried Someone we thought dead, and now hear him calling in the night: Help me! Heaving and panting, he raises the gravestone of our soul and body higher and still higher, breathing more freely at every moment.
Every word, every deed, every thought is the heavy gravestone he is forever trying to lift. And my own body and all the visible world, all heaven and earth, are the gravestone which God is struggling to heave upward. - View Quote Details on It is as though we had buried Someone we thought…
“Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be.”
This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow. - View Quote Details on “Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great…
The moment is ripe: leave the heart and the mind behind you, go forward, take the third step.
Free yourself from the simple complacency of the mind that thinks to put all things in order and hopes to subdue phenomena. Free yourself from the terror of the heart that seeks and hopes to find the essence of things.
Conquer the last, the greatest temptation of all: Hope. This is the third duty. - View Quote Details on The moment is ripe: leave the heart and the mind…
I thank God that this refreshing childhood vision still lives inside me in all its fullness of color and sound. This is what keeps my mind untouched by wastage, keeps it from withering and running dry. It is the sacred drop of immortal water which prevents me from dying. When I wish to speak of the sea, woman, or God in my writing, I gaze down in my breast and listen carefully to what the child within me says. He dictates to me; and if it sometimes happens that I come close to these great forces of the sea, woman, and God, approach them by means of words and depict them, I owe it to the child who still lives within me. I become a child again to enable myself to view the world always for the first time, with virgin eyes. - View Quote Details on I thank God that this refreshing childhood vision still lives…
One power descends and wants to scatter, to come to a standstill, to die. The other power ascends and strives for freedom, for immortality.
These two armies, the dark and the light, the armies of life and of death, collide eternally. - View Quote Details on One power descends and wants to scatter, to come to…
I’ve fought with men and gods, I’ve weighed them well and found
the sea more firm than earth, the air more firm than sea,
and man’s impalpable soul still yet more firm than air! - View Quote Details on I’ve fought with men and gods, I’ve weighed them well…