I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge or Virtue or Goodness or Victory but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!
Interpretation
The quote highlights that the greatest achievement in life transcends knowledge and moral virtues, reaching into the realm of profound reverence and appreciation for existence.
Nikos Kazantzakis suggests that while knowledge, virtue, goodness, and victory are significant human accomplishments, there exists a deeper and more profound state of being referred to as 'Sacred Awe.' This sense of awe encompasses a profound recognition of the mystery of life and our place within it, evoking both a heroic spirit and a deep sense of despair, as it confronts the limits of human understanding and existence.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about personal growth and spiritual awareness.
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.
This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything- as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.
What happiness this is: to fly, skimming over the earth just as we do in our dreams! Life has become a dream. Can this be the meaning of paradise?
I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect. Night has fallen.
The dual substance of Christ - the yearning, so human, so superhuman, of man to attain God. [...] has always been a deep inscrutable mystery to me. [...] My principle anguish and source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh. [...] And my soul is the arena where these two armies have clashed and met.
I fight to embrace the entire circle of human activity to the full extent of my ability.
Honesty is seldom ingratiating and often discomfiting.
He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.
Blessed is he whose fame does not outshine his truth.
Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.
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