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About this quote

What does it mean?
Biological life consumes energy and ends physically to transmit a spiritual drive for progress to the next generation.
In plain terms
Living things use energy and die to pass on the drive to improve to their offspring.
What can you take from it?
Physical sacrifice fuels the spiritual drive for upward progress.

Where it applies

  • parenting
  • mentorship
  • creative projects

Putting it to work

  • invest in future
  • accept sacrifice
  • seek growth

Questions to consider

  • What do you leave behind?
  • How do you find meaning in struggle?

Another view

It equates biological death with spiritual success which may be too narrow.

More from Nikos Kazantzakis

  1. Only now, as we feel the onslaught behind us, do we begin dimly to apprehend why the animals fought, begot, and died; and behind them the plants; and behind th…

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  2. Behind the stream of my mind and body, behind the stream of my race and all mankind, behind the stream of plants and animals, I watch with trembling the Invisi…

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  3. I recall an endless desert of infinite and flaming matter. I am burning! I pass through immeasurable, unorganized time, completely done, despairing, crying in …

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