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Amidst our greatest happiness someone within us cries out: 'I am in pain! I want to escape your happiness! I am stifling!' Amidst our deepest despair someone within us cries out: 'I do not despair! I fight on! I grasp at your head, I unsheathe myself from your body, I detach myself from the earth, I cannot be contained in brains, in names, in deeds!'

Nikos Kazantzakis#29

StruggleFreedomHopeEmotionResilienceDuality

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About this quote

What does it mean?
Even in happiness, a part of us feels confined and cries for escape. In despair, another part fights to detach from the earth and continue the struggle.
In plain terms
We feel trapped even in happiness and fight on even in despair.
What can you take from it?
Accept that you cannot be contained by any single emotion.

Where it applies

  • emotional regulation
  • crisis
  • self reflection

Putting it to work

  • acknowledge hidden pain
  • persist through hardship
  • seek growth

Questions to consider

  • When do you feel trapped?
  • How do you fight despair?

Another view

It assumes a constant internal war that may not apply to everyone.

More from Nikos Kazantzakis

  1. Gather your strength and listen; the whole heart of man is a single outcry. Lean against your breast to hear it; someone is struggling and shouting within you.…

    Permalink to quote #28

  2. This is the moment of greatest crisis. This is the signal for the March to begin. If you do not hear this Cry tearing at your entrails, do not set out.

    Permalink to quote #30

  3. Nothing exists! Neither life nor death. I watch mind and matter hunting each other like two nonexistent erotic phantasms - merging, begetting, disappearing - a…

    Permalink to quote #27

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