Franz Kafka Quotes
-
If the literature we are reading does not wake us, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
-
Now at last I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.
-
Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.
-
If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?
-
We live in an age which is so possessed by demons, that soon we shall only be able to do goodness and justice in the deepest secrecy, as if it were a crime.
-
Only the moment counts. It determines life.
-
My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
-
'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.
-
So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.
-
May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.
-
Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.
-
One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.
-
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.
-
Art is for the artist is only suffering through which he releases himself for further suffering.
-
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.
-
To animalise is humane, to humanise is animal.
-
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.
-
Man cannot live without a continuous confidence in something indestructible within himself.
-
There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.
-
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.
-
'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.
-
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.
-
Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.
-
Do not waste your time looking for an obstacle - maybe there is none.