Franz Kafka Quotes

Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

The more horses you yoke the quicker everything will go - not the rending of the block from its foundation, which is impossible, but the snapping of the traces and with that the gay and empty journey.

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks be hind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one' s every word.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer.

All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.

There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.

The meaning of life is that it stops.

Celibacy and suicide are a similar levels of understanding, suicide and a martyr's death not so by any means, perhaps marriage and a martyr's death.

This noble body, equipped with everything necessary, almost to the point of bursting, also appeared to carry freedom around with it.

One tells as few lies as possible only by telling as few lies as possible, and not by having the least possible opportunity to do so.

Should I be grateful or should I curse the fact that despite all misfortune I can still feel love, an unearthly love but still for earthly objects.

I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength.

Anyone who renounces the world must love all men, for he renounces their world too. He thus begins to have some inkling of the true nature of man, which cannot but be loved, always assuming that one is its peer.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

As far as I have seen, at school...they aimed at blotting out one's individuality.

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more.

Simply wait, be quiet, still The world will freely offer itself to you.

When one has once accepted and absorbed Evil, it no longer demands to be believed.

Writer speaks a stench.

What is meant by its nature for the highest and the best, spreads among the lowly people.

And I leave my post of observation and find I have had enough of this outside life; I feel that there is nothing more that I can learn here, either now or at any time. And I long to say a last goodbye to everything up here, to go down into my burrow never to return again, let things take their course, and not try to retard them with my profitless vigils.

You need not even listen, just wait...the world will offer itself freely to you, unmasking itself.

It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill

Either the world is so tiny or we are enormous; in either case, we fill it completely.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

The observer of the soul cannot penetrate into the soul, but there doubtless is a margin where he comes into contact with it. Recognition of this contact is the fact that even the soul does not know of itself. Hence it must remain unknown. That would be sad only if there were anything apart from the soul, but there is nothing else.

Slept, awoke, slept, awoke, miserable life.

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

Adam's first domestic pet after the expulsion from Paradise was the serpent.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.

He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

Work as joy, inaccessible to the psychologists.

Love is a drama of contradictions.

Like tired dogs they stand there, because they use up all their strength in remaining upright in one's memory.

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. Since I am nothing but literature and can and want to be nothing else, my job will never take possession of me, it may, however, shatter me completely, and this is by no means a remote possibility.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.

Believing means liberating the indestructible element in oneself, or, more accurately, liberating oneself, or, more accurately, being indestructible, or, more accurately, being.

In me, by myself, without human relationship, there are no visible lies. The limited circle is pure.