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?
Interpretation
The quote expresses joy in the experience of flying and relates it to the idea of paradise and dreams.
Nikos Kazantzakis captures the exhilarating feeling of flying and connects it to the deeper notion of happiness and fulfillment found in our dreams. This sentiment suggests that such joyful experiences may represent a form of paradise, blurring the lines between reality and our idealized visions of life.
In practice
This quote is perfect for an inspirational speech about pursuing dreams.
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.
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.
When an almond tree became covered with blossoms in the heart of winter, all the trees around it began to jeer. 'What vanity,' they screamed, 'what insolence! Just think, it believes it can bring spring in this way!' The flowers of the almond tree blushed for shame. 'Forgive me, my sisters,' said the tree. 'I swear I did not want to blossom, but suddenly I felt a warm springtime breeze in my heart.
I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That's why it's my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can't it, even if it isn't real.
Christmas is here, Merry old Christmas, Gift-bearing Christmas, Day of grand memories, King of the year!
I think you can be depressed and flourish, I think you can have cancer and flourish, I think you can be divorced and flourish. When we believed that happiness was only smiling and good mood, that wasn't very good for people like me, people in the lower half of positive affectivity.
Gratefulness is the gallantry of a heart ready to rise to the opportunity a given moment offers.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
You can't reason yourself back into cheerfulness any more than you can reason yourself into an extra six inches in height.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.