Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

Hypocrisy is a fearful evil, and every thing which has a tendency to produce it should be avoided.

When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

A sinful heart makes feeble hand.

To whom shall I hire myself out? What beast should I adore? What holy image is attacked? What hearts shall I break? What lies shall I uphold? In what blood tread?

. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .

A corrupt practice may be abolished, but a soiled imagination is not easily cleansed.

My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart so white.

Even a little untruth destroys a man, as a drop of poison ruins milk.

A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper, And that's the reason he himself's so dirty

Justice shines in very smoky homes, and honors the righteous; but the gold-spangled mansions where the hands are unclean she leaves with eyes averted.

My hands are clean, but my heart has somewhat of impurity.

I hate what you represent." ... "Power without conviction." Isana replied, her tone lifeless, matter of fact. "Ambition without conscience. Decent folk suffer at the hands of those like you.

Too much virtue has a corrupting effect.

Islam emphasized the internal purity of man that is achieved through the purity of the mind in realizing the Right and the purity of feelings through having the pure intention towards man, far away from the meanness of malevolence and hatred and through the purity of the movement that is not lunched except for the sake of justice, Good and life.

The moment one begins to solder right and wrong together, one's conscience becomes like a piece of plated goods.

When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

Sordid and infamous sensuality, the most dreadful evil that issued from the box of Pandora, corrupts every heart, and eradicates every virtue. Fly! wherefore dost thou linger? Fly, cast not one look behind thee; nor let even thy thought return to the accursed evil for a moment.

You figure they cheat at the ballpark, they'll cheat on the golf course, they'll cheat in business, and anything else in life. Players may laugh about it and say it's funny, but right down in their heart, they don't think it's funny at all, and they have no respect for a person who cheats.

Enough white lies can scorch the earth black.

Backsliders begin with dusty Bibles and end with filthy garments.

Let it stand, therefore, as an indubitable truth, which no engines can shake, that the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that he cannot conceive, desire, or design any thing but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure, and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness.

What use of oaths, of promise, or of test, where men regard no God but interest?

Do not say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, because an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart.

You cannot tempt the hearts of men who are pure.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.