Nikos Kazantzakis
Nikos Kazantzakis – Life, Work, and Famous Quotes
Explore the life, philosophy, and legacy of Nikos Kazantzakis — Greek novelist, poet, and thinker behind Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ. Dive into his biography, themes, and memorable quotes that continue to inspire.
Introduction
Nikos Kazantzakis (born 2 March [Old Style 18 February] 1883 – died 26 October 1957) was one of the most influential modern Greek writers, philosophers, and spiritual thinkers. His works blend existential quests, religious struggle, and mythic imagination. His best-known novels, like Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, have had global reach, translated into many languages, adapted into film, and widely discussed for their depth and challenge. His life was a journey of constant searching — for meaning, for freedom, for God — and his writing continues to resonate in literary, philosophical, and spiritual circles.
Early Life and Family
Kazantzakis was born in Kandiye (modern Heraklion), on the island of Crete, which at the time was still under Ottoman rule.
He grew up during a time of Cretan struggle for autonomy and union with Greece, which influenced the cultural and political flavors of his upbringing. His early exposure to both tradition (Orthodox Christianity, local folklore) and the ferment of modern ideas shaped his later conflicts between faith, rebellion, and transcendence.
Youth and Education
Kazantzakis studied law at the University of Athens (1902–1906), culminating in a doctoral thesis on Nietzsche in 1906.
During those years he also began his work as a translator, translating pivotal philosophical and literary works (including Divine Comedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Origin of Species, Iliad and Odyssey) into Modern Greek.
His exposure to European intellectual currents (existentialism, modernism, socialism) attracted him to reconciling Greek identity and universal themes. His formative travels, readings, and translations expanded his vision beyond the parochial.
Career and Major Works
Literary Output & Themes
Kazantzakis was prolific: he wrote novels, plays, travelogues, philosophical essays, memoirs, and translations. Some of his most famous novels include:
-
Zorba the Greek (1946) — perhaps his most universally known work.
-
Christ Recrucified (also known as The Greek Passion, 1948)
-
Captain Michalis (1950) / Freedom or Death
-
The Last Temptation of Christ (1955)
-
Report to Greco (memoirs, letters, philosophical reflections)
-
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (a 33,333-line epic poem, worked on over many years)
Across his work he wrestles with dualities: body vs. spirit, faith vs. doubt, freedom vs. restraint, light vs. darkness. His style often invokes myth, nature, and a raw, restless longing for transcendence.
Public Life, Travel & Political Involvement
Kazantzakis traveled extensively: Europe, Russia, Spain, Asia (China, Japan), Egypt, Sinai, and many other regions. These journeys deeply influenced his worldview and writing.
Politically, he leaned toward socialist ideals with emphasis on social justice and democracy. He believed socialism as a goal and democracy as the means to solving urgent social ills.
He had a conflicted relationship with the Greek Orthodox Church and religious institutions. While he remained deeply spiritual, he openly challenged dogmas and theological conservatism, leading some clerics to propose excommunication. His reply when cursed by church fathers:
“You gave me a curse, Holy fathers, I give you a blessing: may your conscience be as clear as mine and may you be as moral and religious as I.”
His struggle with faith is manifest in The Last Temptation and other works, where he imagines Christ humanly, doubting, resisting, embracing his fate.
Later Years & Death
In his last decade, he produced many of his greatest works. He continued to travel even while ill.
In 1957, during a trip to China and Japan, he contracted flu (or complications thereof). Some accounts also assert gangrene complications from vaccinations.
He is interred at the Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian walls of Heraklion, Crete, overlooking the mountains and sea of his homeland. His tomb bears the epitaph (in Greek):
“Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύτερος.”
Translated: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in nine different years during his life (though he never won).
Legacy and Influence
Kazantzakis is often considered the most translated Greek author of the 20th century. His narratives and ideas have influenced literature, philosophy, theology, and comparative religious studies worldwide.
Key aspects of his influence:
-
Existential & spiritual discourse: He pushed the boundaries of religious literature by dramatizing doubt, suffering, transcendence. His dialog with Christianity (especially in The Last Temptation) influenced thinkers who deal with faith and doubt.
-
Greek cultural identity: He contributed to modern Greek literature’s shift toward Demotic Greek (vernacular) instead of archaic or elite forms, arguing that the spoken language of people could sustain art.
-
Myth and universal archetypes: He used mythic frames and archetypal quests (Odysseus, Christ, Zorba) to discuss universal human striving.
-
Intellectual bravery: His willingness to question accepted norms — religious, political, social — is emblematic for artists and thinkers who resist conformity.
-
Inspiring future writers: Many writers, poets, theologians cite Kazantzakis as an influence in how to merge passion, doubt, and cosmic longing.
His famous epitaph—“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”—has become a rallying statement for spiritual independence and existential courage.
Personality and Inner Struggle
Kazantzakis was characterized by restlessness, inner conflict, and a fiery ambition to grapple with ultimate questions. He saw life as a perpetual striving.
He often spoke of the human soul as burdened by flesh and limitations, yet aspiring to union with divinity. He wrote:
“The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh.”
He also said:
“A man needs a little madness, or else… he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
His life was often a battleground: between hope and despair, faith and doubt, action and passivity. Yet he strove to articulate, through literature, the paradoxes and torments of being human.
He was generous with his travels — visiting monasteries, ascetics, remote landscapes — in quest of wisdom. That combination of intellectual rigor and spiritual seeking defined his personality.
Famous Quotes by Nikos Kazantzakis
Here are some notable quotes that capture his spirit (with sources):
-
“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” — his famous epitaph.
-
“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
-
“God changes appearances every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.”
-
“The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.”
-
“Be always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, smash it! The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.”
-
“What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness… in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable.”
-
“A man needs a little madness, or else… he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
-
“There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.”
-
“The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh.”
-
“Life is a crusade in the service of God. Whether we wished to or not, we set out as crusaders to free — not the Holy Sepulcher — but that God buried in matter and in our souls.”
These quotes reflect recurring themes: freedom, faith, struggle, transformation.
Lessons & Reflections from Kazantzakis
From Kazantzakis’s life and work, here are several takeaways:
-
Strive without certainty. He teaches us that passion for what is not yet real may bring it into being.
-
Embrace inner tensions. He shows that conflict — between belief and doubt, body and spirit — is existential fuel, not a fault.
-
Reject complacency. “Smash habit, reject satisfaction” is a call to keep pushing boundaries.
-
Seek freedom as an interior quest. His epitaph ("I hope for nothing… I am free") signifies that true liberation is internal, not external.
-
Live in dialogue with the divine. He treats God not as static but as dynamic, mutable, present in the world’s flux.
-
Use art to wrestle with ultimate questions. For Kazantzakis, literature is not entertainment, but a vessel for spiritual and existential inquiry.
Conclusion
Nikos Kazantzakis stands as a luminous and paradoxical figure in world literature. His writings challenge complacency, invite inner confrontation, and demand that we live with both feet in temporal struggle and yearning for transcendence. His legacy remains not just in novels and epics, but in the spiritual, moral, and philosophical questions he leaves us to continue wrestling with.