12 quotes
The highest point a man can obtain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!
Zorba the Greek (1946)
Every village has its simpleton, and if one does not exist they invent one to pass the time.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
Two equally steep and bold paths may lead to the same peak. To act as if death did not exist, or to act thinking every minute of death, is perhaps the same thing.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
To cleave that sea in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man into paradise.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. ... All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
As I watched the seagulls, I thought: "That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust."
Zorba the Greek (1946)
Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it we do suddenly realize — sometimes with astonishment — how happy we had been.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it we do suddenly realize — sometimes with astonishment — how happy we had been.
Zorba the Greek (1946)
Behind each woman rises the austere, sacred and mysterious face of Aphrodite. ... Dame Hortense was only an ephemeral and transparent mask which Zorba tore away to kiss the eternal mouth.
Zorba the Greek (1946)