As you walk, you cut open and create that river bed into which the stream of your descendants shall enter and flow.
Interpretation
Our actions shape the future for generations to come.
This quote by Nikos Kazantzakis emphasizes the significance of our choices and actions over our lifetime, suggesting that the paths we create and the legacies we leave are what future generations will inherit. It reflects the idea that we are not merely living for ourselves but are also responsible for guiding and impacting the lives of those who follow us, much like how a riverbed directs the flow of water.
In practice
Use this quote during a graduation speech to inspire students to consider their impact.
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.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Man is a simple being, and however rich, varied, and unfathomable he may be, the cycle of his situations is soon run through.
It is a hard thing for a man to be righteous, if the unrighteous man is to have the greater right.
Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be mortified. If your life is unholy, then your heart is unchanged, and you are an unsaved person. The Savior will sanctify His people, renew them, give them a hatred of sin, and a love of holiness. The grace that does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves His people, not IN their sins, but FROM their sins. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.
Do not act following customary beliefs.
I hope I'm worthy in my dying. I hope I can maintain myself - that I wouldn't become pathetic and needy, and the worst part of myself come out in adversity. But I'm not afraid of it. It'd be such a silly thing to do! To ruin the life you have by fearing its ending.
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