80+ Franz Kafka Quotes to Inspire Reflection, Mystery, and the Absurd
- July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924
- Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
- Writer, lawyer
- Had a major influence on 20th century literature with works such as “The Metamorphosis,” “The Trial,” and “The Castle”
- “In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.”
- “In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.”
- “Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.”
- “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.”
- “We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.”
- “The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler.”
- “The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.”
- “May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.”
- “Don Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.”
- “The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.”
- “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.”
- “Dread of night. Dread of not-night.”
- “Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.”
- “In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”
- “If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.”
- “So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.”
- “Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.”
- “If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.”
- “Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “My ‘fear’ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.”
- “The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.”
- “My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.”
- “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 only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.”
- “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.”
- “It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.”
- “Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.”
- “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.”
- “Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.”
- “Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.”
- “Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.”
- “No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth.”
- “Religions get lost as people do.”
- “By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”
- “He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.”
- “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
- “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.”
- “One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.”
- “Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.”
- “In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.”
- “Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.”
- “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.”
- “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.”
- “I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”
- “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.”
- “A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.”
- “I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.”
- “In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.”
- “Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.”
- “It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.”
- “Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”
- “How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?”
- “The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.”
- “Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.”
- “The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.”
- “One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.”
- “Evil is whatever distracts.”
- “Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.”
- “A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.”
- “From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.”
- “Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.”
- “God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?”
- “A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.”
- “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.”
- “Writers speak stench.”
- “By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.”
- “Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.”
- “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.”
- “Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.”