“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes…

“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality,” says one of my favorite Byzantine mystics. I did this when a child; I do it now as well in the most creative moments of my life.

Sourced, Report to Greco (1965)

“The Son”, Ch. 4, p. 45

Other Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

How does the light of a star set out and plunge into black eternity in its immortal course? The star dies, but the light never dies; such also is the cry of freedom.
Out of the transient encounter of contrary forces which constitute your existence, strive to create whatever immortal thing a mortal may create in this world — a Cry.
And this Cry, abandoning to the earth the body which gave it birth, proceeds and labors eternally. - View Quote Details on How does the light of a star set out and…
The bodies breathe, feed, store up strength, and then in an erotic moment are shattered, are spent and drained utterly, that they may bequeath their spirit to their sons. What spirit? The drive upward! - View Quote Details on The bodies breathe, feed, store up strength, and then in…
Gather together in your heart all terrors, recompose all details. Salvation is a circle; close it! - View Quote Details on Gather together in your heart all terrors, recompose all details…
The rosy mountain peaks laughed like high lustrous thoughts,
and Helen, speechless, raised her pale hands toward the sun
and joyed to feel its warm rays falling on her frozen palms. - View Quote Details on The rosy mountain peaks laughed like high lustrous thoughts,
and Helen,…
Amid all these things, beyond all these things every man and nation, every plant and animal, every god and demon, charges upward like an army inflamed by an incomprehensible, unconquerable Spirit.
We struggle to make this Spirit visible, to give it a face, to encase it in words, in allegories and thoughts and incantations, that it may not escape us.
But it cannot be contained in the twentysix letters of an alphabet which we string out in rows; we know that all these words, these allegories, these thoughts, and these incantations are, once more, but a new mask with which to conceal the Abyss. - View Quote Details on Amid all these things, beyond all these things every man…
Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time. - View Quote Details on Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not…
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 man has his own circle composed of trees, animals, men, ideas, and he is in duty bound to save this circle. He, and no one else. If he does not save it, he cannot be saved.
These are the labors each man is given and is in duty bound to complete before he dies. He may not otherwise be saved. For his own soul is scattered and enslaved in these things about him, in trees, in animals, in men, in ideas, and it is his own soul he saves by completing these labors. - View Quote Details on Every man has his own circle composed of trees, animals,…
Your first duty, in completing your service to your race, is to feel within you all your ancestors. Your second duty is to throw light on their onrush and to continue their work. Your third duty is to pass on to your son the great mandate to surpass you. - View Quote Details on Your first duty, in completing your service to your race,…
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…