The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh. Its perceptions are still coarse and brutish. It can divine nothing clearly, nothing with certainty.

He never became a consistent communist but visited the Soviet Union and stayed with the Left Opposition politician and writer Victor Serge. He gained renewed fame with the 1988 Martin Scorsese adaptation of his book The Last Temptation of Christ. " Upon his return to Greece he began translating works of philosophy.

He became known globally after the 1964 release of the Michael Cacoyannis film Zorba the Greek based on the novel. Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek: Νίκος Καζαντζάκης; February 18 1883 – October 26 1957) was a Greek writer and philosopher celebrated for his novel Zorba the Greek considered his magnum opus.