Franz Kafka
novelist, fabulist, short story writer, aphorist, diarist, translator, lawyer, poet lawyer, claims adjuster, prose writer, writer, jurist, librettist, poet
Read on Wikipedia1883 – 1924
All Quotes by Franz Kafka
“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.”
“Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.”
“How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.”
“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
“Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.”
“God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.”
“The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.”
“If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?”
“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.”
“May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.”
“He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.”
“My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.”
“But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now to come to a horrifying end?”
“One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.”
“Dread of night. Dread of not-night.”
“Evil is whatever distracts.”
“How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?”
“The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.”
“Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.”
“We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.”
“Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.”
“Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.”
“I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”
“The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.”
“No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth.”
“We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.”
“Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.”
“The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.”
“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
“A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.”
“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.”
“In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”
“In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.”
“Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.”
“It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.”
“Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.”
“The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.”
“Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”
“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”
“Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.”
“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.”
“Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.”
“My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.”
“The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.”
“The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.”
“Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.”
“In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.”
“Don't despair, not even over the fact that you don't despair.”
“Religions get lost as people do.”
“Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.”
“If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.”
“So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.”
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
“Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.”
“By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.”
“I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.”
“One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.”
“Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.”
“Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.”
“A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.”
“One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: "This man is not to be locked up again, He is to come with me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.”
“In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.”
“Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.”
“Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.”
“My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.”
“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.”
“The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.”
“It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.”
“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.”
“In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.”
“If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.”
“A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.”
“How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.”
“Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.”
“Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.”
“Writers speak stench.”
“Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.”
“It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.”
“In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.”
“Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.”
“There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.”
“The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.”
“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.”
“It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.”
“A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.”
“God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.”
“Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The bliss of murder! The relief, the soaring ecstasy from the shedding of another’s blood! Wese, old nightbird, friend, alehouse crony, you are oozing away into the dark earth below the street. Why aren’t you simply a bladder of blood so that I could stamp on you and make you vanish into nothingness? Not all we want comes true, not all the dreams that blossomed have borne fruit, your solid remains lie here, already indifferent to every kick. What’s the good of the dumb question you are asking?”
“Plenty of hope — for God — no end of hope — only not for us.”
“What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?”
“The meaning of life is that it stops.”
“How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense.”
“"Hey, there’s something falling down in there," said the chief clerk. Gregor tried to suppose to himself that what had happened to him might some day also happen to the chief clerk. There was no denying that anything was possible.”
“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
“Was he an animal, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light.”
“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.”
“The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than to be walked upon.”
“All human errors are impatience, the premature breaking off of what is methodical, an apparent fencing in of the apparent thing.”
“There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise; it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.”
“Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.”
“It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.”
“My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.”
“The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.”
“One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one will only in time come to hate.”
“A cage went in search of a bird.”
“If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.”
“Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.”
“From the true antagonist illimitable courage is transmitted to you.”
“Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities for escape, again, are as many as hiding places. There is a goal, but no way; what we call a way is hesitation.”
“When one has once accepted and absorbed Evil, it no longer demands to be believed.”
“The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil. The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master’s whiplash.”
“In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.”
“Self-control is something for which I do not strive. Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.”
“Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.”
“His weariness is that of the gladiator after the combat; his work was the whitewashing of a corner in a state official's office.”
“Previously I did not understand why I got no answer to my question; today I do not understand how I could believe I was capable of asking. But I didn’t really believe, I only asked.”
“The way is infinitely long, nothing of it can be subtracted, nothing can be added, and yet everyone applies his own childish yardstick to it. “Certainly, this yard of the way you still have to go, too, and it will be accounted unto you.””
“It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.”
“Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made. That is not the sort of belief that indicates real faith.”
“The mediation by the serpent was necessary: Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.”
“In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world.”
“One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.”
“Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
“There are questions we could not get past if we were not set free from them by our very nature.”
“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.”
“The fact that there is nothing but a spiritual world deprives us of hope and gives us certainty.”
“Expulsion from Paradise is in its main aspect eternal: that is to say, although expulsion from Paradise is final, and life in the world unavoidable, the eternity of the process (or, expressed in temporal terms, the eternal repetition of the process) nevertheless makes it possible not only that we might remain in Paradise permanently, but that we may in fact be there permanently, no matter whether we know it here or not.”
“But I’m not guilty,” said K. “there’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.” “That is true” said the priest “but that is how the guilty speak”
“What is gayer than believing in a household god?”
“Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.”
“The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.”
“If what was supposed to have been destroyed in Paradise was destructible, then it was not decisive; but if it was indestructible, then we are living in a false belief.”
“Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.”
“Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.”
“Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.”
“Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.”
“Why do we complain about the Fall? It is not on its account that we were expelled from Paradise, but on account of the Tree of Life, lest we might eat of it.”
“The whole visible world is perhaps nothing more than than the rationalization of a man who wants to find peace for a moment. An attempt to falsify the actuality of knowledge, to regard knowledge as a goal still to be reached.”
“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.”
“Evil is a radiation of the human consciousness in certain transitional positions. It is not actually the sensual world that is a mere appearance; what is so is the evil of it, which, admittedly, is what constitutes the sensual world in our eyes.”
“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.”
“Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.”
“So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.”
“Towards the avoidance of a piece of verbal confusion: What is intended to be actively destroyed must first of all have been firmly grasped; what crumbles away crumbles away, but cannot be destroyed.”
“There can be knowledge of the diabolical, but no belief in it, for more of the diabolical than there is does not exist.”
“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. His landlady's cook, who always brought him his breakfast at eight o'clock, failed to appear on this occasion. That had never happened before.”
“It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.”
“They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.”
“The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.”
“'...it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.' 'A melancholy conclusion,' said K. 'It turns lying into a universal principle.In the Cathedral”
“Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. Where was the judge he had never seen? Where was the High Court he had never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. But the hands of one of the men closed round his throat, just as the other drove the knife deep into his heart and turned it twice.”
“"Like a dog!" he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.”
“The whole visible world is perhaps nothing more than than the rationalization of a man who wants to find peace for a moment. An attempt to falsify the actuality of knowledge, to regard knowledge as a goal still to be reached.”
“The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last day.”
“I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.”
“"Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said.”
“Eternal childhood. Life calls again. It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons.”
“Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate — he has little success in this — but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different (and more) things than do the others; after all, dead as he is in his own lifetime, he is the real survivor. This assumes that he does not need both hands, or more hands than he has, in his struggle against despair.”
“The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.”
“The thornbush is old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.”
“There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.”
“Anyone who believes cannot experience miracles. By day one does not see any stars. Anyone who does miracles says: I cannot let go of the earth.”
“Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.”
“Now at last I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.”
“What is meant by its nature for the highest and the best, spreads among the lowly people.”
“A man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares. The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.”
“Everything you say is boring and incomprehensible," she said, "but that alone doesn't make it true.”
“Oh well, memories,” said I. “Yes, even remembering in itself is sad, yet how much more its object! Don’t let yourself in for things like that, it’s not for you and it’s not for me. It only weakens one’s present position without strengthening the former one — nothing is more obvious — quite apart from the fact that the former one doesn’t need strengthening.”
“When\xa0.\xa0.\xa0. some leisurely passer-by stopped\xa0.\xa0.\xa0. and spoke of cheating, that was in its way the stupidest lie ever invented by indifference and inborn malice, since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating, he was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward.”
“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.”
“To fight against this lack of understanding, against a whole world of non-understanding, was impossible.”
“All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog. If one could but realize this knowledge, if one could but bring it into the light of day, if we dogs would but own that we know infinitely more than we admit to ourselves!”
“Ours is a lost generation, it may be, but it is more blameless than those earlier generations.”
“So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.”
“"You asking me the way?" "Yes," I said, "since I can't find it myself." "Give it up! Give it up!" said he, and turned with a sudden jerk, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.”
“Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.”
“Kill me, or you are a murderer.”
“L'éternité, c'est long ... surtout vers la fin.”