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.
Being happy or unhappy - is that really the most important thing? Knowing the truth would be a different kind of happiness - a more satisfying kind, I think, even if it turned out to be a sad kind.
When you are optimistic, when you are not complaining, when you look at the good side of your life, everybody loves you.
I am compelled to continuously see the bright side. It is in my DNA. My kids look at me and say: 'Mom, you're so happy!' And I do feel happy. I feel joyful inside. I can't explain it.
Life should be blissful, and blissful doesn't mean just a small happiness. It's huge. It is profound.
Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness.
What other sport holds out hope of improvement to a man or a woman over fifty? True, the pros begin to falter at around forty, but it is their putting nerves that go, not their swings. For a duffer like [me], the room for improvement is so vast that three lifetimes could be spent roaming the fiarways carving away at it, convinced that perfection lies just over the next rise. And that hope, perhaps, is the kindest bliss of all that golf bestows upon its devotees.
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