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.
Good food is a celebration of life.
A happy New Year! Grant that I May bring no tear to any eye When this New Year in time shall end Let it be said I've played the friend, Have lived and loved and labored here, And made of it a happy year.
Employment is nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness.
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance.
I'm a happy man, because I am successful in what I do, of course; but what makes me most happy is I have people around me that I love and who love me back. This, for me, is the most important thing. Nobody likes to be alone.
We start to realize that there are anodynes in life that help us through the day. I don't care if it's a walk in the park, a look out the window, a good bubble bath - whatever. Even a meal you like, or a friend you want to call. That helps us solve all this stuff in our head.
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