Happiness is a simple everyday miracle, like water, and we are not aware of it.
Interpretation
Happiness is a fundamental aspect of life that is often overlooked despite its simplicity and abundance.
In this quote, Nikos Kazantzakis reflects on the often unrecognized presence of happiness in our daily lives, likening it to waterβan essential and miraculous element that we take for granted. He suggests that true happiness is simple and readily available, yet many fail to acknowledge its existence, urging us to be more aware and appreciative of the joy found in everyday moments.
In practice
This quote could be used in a motivational speech about finding joy in everyday life.
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.
When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.
Just try the effect of putting beauty into your life, a little every day. You will find it magical. It will broaden and light up your outlook upon the world as the acquisition of money or fame never can.
It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available - more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more.
Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.
I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
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