When you've made up your mind, no use lagging behind, go ahead and no relenting, Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.

Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings.

Life's true face is the skull.

The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh. Its perceptions are still coarse and brutish. It can divine nothing clearly, nothing with certainty.

Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.

Freedom was my first great desire. The second, which remains hidden within me to this day, tormenting me, was the desire for sanctity. Hero together with saint: such is mankind's supreme model.

So few in reality are the true necessities of man

The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.

Let people be, boss; don't open their eyes. And supposing you did, what'd they see? Their misery! Leave their eyes closed, boss, and let them go on dreaming!

How could I, who loved life so intensely, have let myself be entangled for so long in that balderdash of books and paper blackened with ink!

Throughout my life my greatest benefactors have been my travels and my dreams. Very few men, living or dead, have helped me in my struggles.

There is only one sin god will not forgive Boss, and that is to deny a woman who is in wanting ~ Zorba

The sole way to save oneself is to save others. Or to struggle to save others -even that is sufficient.

If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would strike. But I am a heart, and I love.

Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry.

Only one woman exists in this world, one woman with countless faces.

My principle anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.

Man is able, and has the duty, to reach the furthest point on the road he has chosen. Only by means of hope can we attain what is beyond hope.

When I encounter a sunrise, a painting, a woman, or an idea that makes my heart bound like a young calf, then I know I am standing in front of happiness.

Beauty is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.

When everyone drowns and I'm the only one to escape, God is protecting me. When everyone else is saved and I'm the only one to drown, God is protecting me then too.

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.