Franz Kafka quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Franz Kafka on Wise Famous Quotes.

Without any way out, not even toward the depth.

Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man
the most guilty.

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

What do I have in common with Jews? I don't even have anything in common with myself.

But you get used to the air alright in the end. When you're here for the second or third time you'll hardly notice how oppressive the air is.

Incidentally, it's easy to write prescriptions, but difficult to come to an understanding with people.

Only the moment counts. It determines life.

I write to close my eyes.

A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a "brief."

Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.

I mustn't look at you too much, or I won't be able to take my eyes off you at all.

All language is but a poor translation.

How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning?

In the mountains our throats become free. It's a wonder we don't break into song.

Next time I come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with me to make them like me or a stick to hit them with.

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

A loyal and loving son, Gregor feels obligated to pay off his parents' debt. Simply quitting would betray that loyalty.

If you come to me you will be leaping into the abyss.

Alone I continue living, yet when a visitor arrives it kills me.

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

I won't give up the diary again. I must hold on here, it is the only place I can.

And for a little while he lay still, breathing lightly as if he expected total repose would restore everything to its normal and unquestionable state.

To animalise is humane, to humanise is animal.

There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.

I'm not in the right place - alas, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that I'm not in the right place.

The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.

The various forms of despair at the various stations on the road.

Torment yourself as little as possible, then you'll torment me less.

I only fear danger where I want to fear it.

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

To write prescriptions is easy, but to come to an understanding with people is hard.

Alone -- do you know what that means?

No one can crave what truly harms him.

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

Then his head sank to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath.

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.

My doubts stand in a circle around every word, I see them before I see the word, but what then! I do not see the word at all, I invent it.

The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.

Uncertainty, aridity, peace-all things will resolve themselves into these and pass away.

I like to make use of what I know

I'll shut myself off from everyone to the point of insensibility. Make an enemy of everyone, speak to no one.

I feel an unhappiness which almost dismembers me, and at the same time am convinced of its necessity

Youth looks good in anything; unpleasant details lose themselves against the unabating vigour of youth ...

He remembered his family with deep feelings of love.

I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.

The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.

Nor is it perhaps really love when I say that for me you are the most beloved; In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself.

The limited circle is pure.

No matter how much you keep encouraging someone who is blindfolded to stare through the cloth, he still won't see a thing..

Illusions are more common than changes in fortune

I can't fashion myself into a different person who might be better suited to be his friend.

Guilt is never to be doubted.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

Nothing, you know, gives the body greater satisfaction than ordering people about, or at least believing in one's ability to do so.

You've seen yourself how difficult the writing is to decipher with your eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds.

The man in ecstasy and the man drowning - both throw up their arms.

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.

[He] used to be so insignificant that one literally felt alone in his presence.

Look at this, Willem, he admits he doesn't know the law and at the same time insists he's innocent.

But I will write in spite of everything, absolutely; it is my struggle for self-preservation.

True undoubting is the teacher's part, continual undoubting the part of the pupil.

I no longer know If I wish to drown myself in love, vodka or the sea.

One morning Gregor Samsa found himself, in bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

A false ring of the night bell, once answered - it can never be made right.

My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast.

One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.

It was half past six and the hands were quietly moving forwards.

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

Every dog has like me the impulse to question, and I have like every dog the impulse not to answer.

Rolling country, not yet quite mountainous, with woods and lakes, is what I like best.

Writer speaks a stench.

But sometimes I really felt as though the starry sky rose and fell with the gasping of his chest.

I'm doing badly, I'm doing well; whichever you prefer.

Everyone has his cross to bear.

It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

The founder brought the laws from the lawgiver; the faithful are meant to announce the laws to the lawgiver.

Anybody who preserves the ability to recognize beauty will never get old.

But what now if all the peace, the comfort, the contentment were to come to a horrible end?

I passed by the brothel as though
past the house of a beloved.

You are free and that is why you are lost.

I, however, cannot force myself to use "meat drugs" to cheat on my loneliness.

Every one of us has a bad conscience, which he tries to escape by going to sleep as quickly as possible.

Every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.

The longer one hesitates before the door, the more estranged one becomes.

Nothing is as deceptive as a photograph.

Writing is prayer.

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

It seems to be a fact that man, tortured by his demons, avenges himself blindly on his fellow-man.

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.

There is a goal but no way; what we call the way is mere wavering.

So then you're free?'
'Yes, I'm free,' said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.

Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.

One day, a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had become part of the liturgy.

Logic is of course unshakeable, but it cannot hold out against a man who wants to live.

Sometimes in his arrogance he has more anxiety for the world than for himself.

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

We are instructed to do the negative; the positive is already within us.

Nothing unites two people so completely, especially if, like you and me, all they have is words.

Ours is a lost generation, it may be, but it is more blameless than those earlier generations.