Skip to content
quotesby

God cries to my heart: 'Save me!' God cries to men, to animals, to plants, to matter: 'Save me!' Listen to your heart and follow him. Shatter your body and awake: We are all one. Love man because you are he. Love animals and plants because you were they, and now they follow you like faithful co-workers and slaves. Love your body; only with it may you fight on this earth and turn matter into spirit. Love matter. God clings to it tooth and nail, and fights. Fight with him. Die every day. Be born every day. Deny everything you have every day. The superior virtue is not to be free but to fight for freedom. Do not condescend to ask: 'Shall we conquer? Shall we be conquered?' Fight on!

Nikos Kazantzakis#85

SpiritualityStruggleUnityEthicsLoveEnvironmentRenewalSelf improvement

About this quote

What does it mean?
God calls to be saved by all beings; love and struggle unite us, and daily renewal is essential.
In plain terms
Love all life and fight daily to become free.
What can you take from it?
Practice love and constant self‑renewal.

Where it applies

  • personal growth
  • environmental stewardship
  • spiritual practice

Putting it to work

  • daily self‑reflection
  • act with compassion

Questions to consider

  • How can daily struggle lead to freedom?
  • What does loving matter entail?

Another view

The language is dense and may be hard to apply.

More from Nikos Kazantzakis

  1. The essence of our God is obscure. It ripens continuously; perhaps victory is strenghened with our every valorous deed, but perhaps even all these agonizing st…

    Permalink to quote #84
  2. All this world, all this rich, endless flow of appearances is not a deception, a multicolored phantasmagoria of our mirroring mind. Nor is it absolute reality …

    Permalink to quote #86
  3. It is our duty to help liberate that God who is stifling in us, in mankind, in masses of people living in darkness. We must be ready at any moment to give up o…

    Permalink to quote #83

Related quotes

  1. Truth is cosmically total: synergetic. Verities are generalized principles stated in semimetaphorical terms. Verities are differentiable. But love is omniembra…

    Buckminster FullerBuckminster Fuller quote #55
  2. We all flow from one fountain- Soul. All are expressions of one love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and…

    John MuirJohn Muir quote #1
  3. 'If we learn how to love others, really, truly love them, not for who we want them to be, but rather for who they are - for the perfect souls that God has crea…

    Ratu Epeli GanilauRatu Epeli Ganilau quote #5