Quotes by
Franz Kafka |
1883-1924 , Bohemian writer
Bohemian-Jewish novelist, and one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. His best known works include Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle).
| 32 quotes | 3,230 visits |
Quotations
| • | The word sein has two meanings in German: “I am” and “his”. 4 |
| • | A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. |
| • | Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self. |
| • | Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. |
| • | You are free and that is why you are lost. |
| • | A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. |
| • | The meaning of life is that it stops. |
| • | All language is but a poor translation |
| • | I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. |
| • | I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy. |
| • | It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves. |
| • | Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. |
| • | There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us. |
| • | I usually solve problems by letting them devour me. |
| • | He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived. |
| • | Better to have, and not need, than to need, and not have. |
| • | As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. (“The Metamorphosis”) |
| • | In the struggle between yourself and the world, side with the world. |
| • | Eternity is a long time ... especially towards the end. |
| • | Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached. |
| • | It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable. |
| • | There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness. |
| • | As a flood spreads wider and wider, the water becomes shallower and dirtier. The Revolution evaporates, and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. |
| • | Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. (“The Trial”) |
| • | What do I have in common with Jews? I don't even have anything in common with myself. |
| • | What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness. |
| • | Yes, I’m free, said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom. |
| • | Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. |
| • | 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. |
| • | We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. |
| • | 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. |
| • | Evil knows of the Good, but Good does not know of Evil. Knowledge of oneself is something only Evil has. |
