I am not alone in my fear, nor alone in…

I am not alone in my fear, nor alone in my hope, nor alone in my shouting. A tremendous host, an onrush of the Universe fears, hopes, and shouts with me.
I am an improvised bridge, and when Someone passes over me, I crumble away behind Him.

Sourced, The Saviors of God (1923)

Other Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

“Do not die that we may not die,” the dead cry out within you. “We had no time to enjoy the women we desired; be in time, sleep with them! We had no time to turn our thoughts into deeds; turn them into deeds! We had no time to grasp and to crystallize the face of our hope; make it firm!”…
But you must choose with care whom to hurl down again into the chasms of your blood, and whom you shall permit to mount once more into the light and the earth. - View Quote Details on “Do not die that we may not die,” the dead…
Amidst our greatest happiness someone within us cries out: “I am in pain! I want to escape your happiness! I am stifling!”
Amidst our deepest despair someone within us cries out: “I do not despair! I fight on! I grasp at your head, I unsheathe myself from your body, I detach myself from the earth, I cannot be contained in brains, in names, in deeds!” - View Quote Details on Amidst our greatest happiness someone within us cries out: “I…
I strive to discover how to signal my companions before I die, how to give them a hand, how to spell out for them in time one complete word at least, to tell them what I think this procession is, and toward what we go. And how necessary it is for all of us together to put our steps and hearts in harmony.
To say in time a simple word to my companions, a password, like conspirators.
Yes, the purpose of Earth is not life, it is not man. Earth has existed without these, and it will live on without them. They are but the ephemeral sparks of its violent whirling.
Let us unite, let us hold each other tightly, let us merge our hearts, let us create — so long as the warmth of this earth endures, so long as no earthquakes, cataclysms, icebergs or comets come to destroy us — let us create for Earth a brain and a heart, let us give a human meaning to the superhuman struggle.
This anguish is our second duty. - View Quote Details on I strive to discover how to signal my companions before…
A slave’s soul has no worth, my brothers; it lacks strength
to tread on this great earth with gallantry and freedom.
I pity the poor slaves, they’re nought but airy mist,
a light breeze scatters them, a fragrance knocks them down;
it’s only just they crawl on the earth on hands and knees.
Today I’ll write a hymn to God and pray for this great grace. - View Quote Details on A slave’s soul has no worth, my brothers; it lacks…
From every joy and pain a hope leaps out eternally to escape this pain and to widen joy.
And again the ascent begins — which is pain — and joy is reborn and new hope springs up once more. The circle never closes. It is not a circle, but a spiral which ascends eternally, ever widening, enfolding and unfolding the triune struggle. - View Quote Details on From every joy and pain a hope leaps out eternally…
It is not you talking, but innumerable ancestors talking with your mouth. It is not you who desire, but innumerable generations of descendants longing with your heart.
Your dead do not lie in the ground. They have become birds, trees, air. You sit under their shade, you are nourished by their flesh, you inhale their breathing. They have become ideas and passions, they determine your will and your actions.
Future generations do not move far from you in an uncertain time. They live, desire, and act in your loins and your heart.
In this lightning moment when you walk the earth, your first duty, by enlarging your ego, is to live through the endless march, both visible and invisible, of your own being. - View Quote Details on It is not you talking, but innumerable ancestors talking with…
Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons. - View Quote Details on Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great…
Every word is an Ark of the Covenant around which we dance and shudder, divining God to be its dreadful inhabitant.
You shall never be able to establish in words that you live in ecstasy. But struggle unceasingly to establish it in words. Battle with myths, with comparisons, with allegories, with rare and common words, with exclamations and rhymes, to embody it in flesh, to transfix it!
God, the Great Ecstatic, works in the same way. He speaks and struggles to speak in every way He can, with seas and with fires, with colors, with wings, with horns, with claws, with constellations and butterflies, that he may establish His ecstasy.
Like every other living thing, I also am in the center of the Cosmic whirlpool. - View Quote Details on Every word is an Ark of the Covenant around which…
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…
The entire Earth, with her trees and her waters, with her animals, with her men and her gods, calls from within your breast.
Earth rises up in your brains and sees her entire body for the first time. - View Quote Details on The entire Earth, with her trees and her waters, with…