Top 100 Franz Kafka Quotes

#1. Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #56730
#2. He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn't yet lived.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #110193
#3. There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #123842
#4. The poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #126517
#5. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #129023
#6. Alone -- do you know what that means?

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #143780
#7. Life is merely terrible; I feel it as few others do. Often - and in my inmost self perhaps all the time - I doubt whether I am a human being.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #156187
#8. He remembered his family with deep feelings of love.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #180094
#9. A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #184849
#10. In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #246495
#11. I'm on such a dangerous road, Milena. You're standing firmly near a tree, young, beautiful, your eyes subduing with their radiance the suffering world.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #261316
#12. I'm thinking only of my illness and my health, though both, the first as well as the second, are you.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #272241
#13. The old incapacity. Interrupted my writing for barely ten days and already cast out. Once again prodigious efforts stand before me. You have to dive down, as it were, and sink more rapidly than that which sinks in advance of you.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #283818
#14. Some books seem like a key to unfamiliar rooms in one's own castle.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #327446
#15. The main thing, when a sword cuts into one's soul, is to keep a calm gaze, lose no blood, accept the coldness of the sword with the coldness of a stone. By means of the stab, after the stab, become invulnerable.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #351236
#16. I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #354812
#17. The meaning of life is that it stops.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #356519
#18. I made the remark that I don't avoid people in order to live quietly, but rather in order to be able to die quietly.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #390990
#19. Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #400848
#20. Above all, he could not stop half way, that was nonsense not only in business but always and everywhere.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #437303
#21. Such a young trial!

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #461748
#22. But eternity is not temporality at a standstill. What is oppressive about the concept of the eternal is the justification, incomprehensible to us, that time must undergo in eternity and the logical conclusion of that, the justification of ourselves as we are.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #469817
#23. Writing [is] a form of prayer.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #495884
#24. But all remains unchanged.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #510680
#25. It is as if a person were a prisoner, and he had not only the intention to escape, which would perhaps be attainable, but also, and indeed simultaneously, the intention to rebuild the prison as a pleasure dome for himself. But if he escapes, he cannot rebuild, and if he rebuilds, he cannot escape.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #537664
#26. A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a "brief."

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #552682
#27. Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope
but not for us.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #587520
#28. I asked myself at the time: how is it that she is not astonished at herself, that she keeps her mouth closed, and expresses nothing of any wonderment?

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #619322
#29. The true way goes over a line that, rather than spanning heights, is hardly above the ground. It appears more decidedly to make one trip than to be walked along.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #627907
#30. How badly I even read. And with what malice and weakness I observe myself. Apparently I cannot force my way into the world, but lie quietly, receive, spread out within me what I have received, and then step calmly forth.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #662627
#31. The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary, he will come only one day after his arrival, he will not come on the last day, but on the last day of all.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #674500
#32. It seems to be a fact that man, tortured by his demons, avenges himself blindly on his fellow-man.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #684480
#33. I hope it is nothing serious. On the other hand, I must also say that we business people, luckily or unluckily, however one looks at it, very often simply have to overcome a slight indisposition for business reasons.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #698654
#34. Could K. represent the congregation all by himself? What if he had been a stranger merely visiting the church? That was more or less his position.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #719955
#35. Do not waste your time looking for an obstacle - maybe there is none.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #731046
#36. Every new discovery is assumed at once into the sum total of knowledge, and with that ceases in a sense to be a discovery; it dissolves into the whole and disappears, and one must have a trained scientific eye even to recognize it after that.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #732895
#37. We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #761098
#38. I was heading for the city in the south, of which they used to say in our village:
'There are people for you! Just think - they never go to sleep!'
'And why don't they?'
'Because they're fools.'
'Don't fools get tired, then?'
'How could fools get tired?

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #764157
#39. When I say something, this thing immediately and definitively loses its importance. When I write it down, it also loses it, but sometimes gains another importance.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #764372
#40. Wrap your coat, O sublime dream, around the child.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #768943
#41. Kafka regarded the end of "The Metamorphosis"- its composition in interrupted by a business trip- as "unreadable." He also wrote in his diary that he found it"bad," but of course Kafka relished his failure. Failure is precisely what he expected and resolved to accomplish- and he hid behind it.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #775038
#42. It's always questionable to intervene decisively in strange circumstances.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #795785
#43. The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #807357
#44. You belong to the people I have to combat, and you're very comfortable among them, you're even in love with the student, or if you don't love him you do at least prefer him to your husband.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #866710
#45. The whole visible world is perhaps nothing other than a motivation of man's wish to rest for a moment an attempt to falsify the fact of knowledge, to try to turn the knowledge into the goal.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #897307
#46. One of the most effective means of seduction that Evil has is the challenge to struggle. It is like the struggle with women, whichends in bed. A married man's true deviations from the path of virtue are, rightly understood, never gay.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #947461
#47. Don't concern yourself about anybody. Just do what you think is right.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #959518
#48. Evil is the radiation of the human consciousness in certain transitional positions. It is not actually the sensual world that is amere appearance; what is so is the evil of it, which, admittedly, is what constitutes the sensual world in our eyes.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1029530
#49. No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1068580
#50. If he stayed at home and carried on with his normal life he would be a thousand times superior to these people and could get any of them out of his way just with a kick.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1153125
#51. Writing is prayer.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1158327
#52. Like a dog! he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1197712
#53. There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1199234
#54. Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence ... someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1205599
#55. There will be no proof that I ever was a writer.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1220933
#56. All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1223079
#57. I am a very unhappy human being and you, dearest, simply had to be summoned to create an equilibrium for all this misery.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1224354
#58. I am always trying to convey something that can't be conveyed, to explain something which is inexplicable, to tell about something I have in my bones, something which can be expressed only in the bones.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1232235
#59. Evil is the starry sky of the Good.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1233429
#60. A false ring of the night bell, once answered - it can never be made right.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1234327
#61. How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense,

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1237956
#62. He had vented all his woes and now they might as well see the few rags that covered his body, after which they could carry him away.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1241886
#63. Our art is a way of being dazzled by truth: the light on the grotesquely grimacing retreating face is true, and nothing else.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1257174
#64. But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now to come to a horrifying end?

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1257393
#65. What do I have in common with Jews? I hardly have anything in common with myself, and really ought to go stand myself perfectly still in a corner, grateful to be able to breathe.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1284330
#66. he gave way to a pleasant lassitude

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1286906
#67. The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1300536
#68. Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don't surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it every moment.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1305517
#69. I have now, and have had since this afternoon, a great yearning to write all of my anxiety entirely out of me.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1316400
#70. Work as joy, inaccessible to the psychologists.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1342895
#71. There was always something in me to catch fire, in this heap of straw that I have been.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1371923
#72. What is written is merely the dregs of experience.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1388779
#73. We can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see it, but I can. I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I can say is: we have to try and get rid of it.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1413321
#74. I can never tear myself open wide enough to people to reveal everything and so frighten them away.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1416509
#75. The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1424130
#76. It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1512033
#77. A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1517648
#78. Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1550842
#79. Either the world is so tiny or we are enormous; in either case, we fill it completely.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1560782
#80. One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slips back into the darkness of the Ark

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1585697
#81. Illusions are more common than changes in fortune

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1600525
#82. How lonely it is here, and how well it suits you.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1673183
#83. Accept your symptoms, don't complain of them; immerse yourself in your suffering.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1678316
#84. I wanted to escape the unrest, to shut out the voices around me and within me, so I write.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1723412
#85. He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1723581
#86. I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1726402
#87. And thus it happens that the reader, the closer he comes to the novel's end, the more he wishes he were back in the summer with which it begins, and finally, instead of following the hero onto the cliffs of suicide, joyfully turns back to that summer, content to stay there forever.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1728603
#88. If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1730941
#89. There is a down-and-outness under true knowledge and a childlike happy arising from it.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1731153
#90. Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man
the most guilty.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1744986
#91. He is a free and secure citizen of the world because he is on a chain that is long enough to allow him access to all parts of the earth, and yet not so long that he could be swept over the edge of it.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1755530
#92. Enlightenment comes to even the dimmest. It begins around the eyes, and it spreads outward from there- a sight that might tempt one to lie down under the harrow oneself.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1756315
#93. The truth is always an abyss. One must - as in a swimming pool - dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again - laughing and fighting for breath - to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1761066
#94. There are questions we could not get past if we were not set free from them by our very nature.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1761623
#95. Like tired dogs they stand there,
because they use up all their strength
in remaining upright in one's memory.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1762348
#96. Alone I continue living, yet when a visitor arrives it kills me.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1765126
#97. All [the authorities] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1789976
#98. We come to mistake the crumbs of mercy for the feast of love

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1819503
#99. The door could not be heard closing; they must have left it open as is usual in houses visited by great misfortune.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1866795
#100. I won't give up the diary again. I must hold on here, it is the only place I can.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes #1867120

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